Time & Again
by epcot97
Summary: Hawkmoth's use of a risky time-manipulation spell goes hideously wrong, erasing Adrien's very existence. Or has it? When Chat Noir unexpectedly finds himself back in his own immediate past, he's forced to convince a skeptical Ladybug to help him restore the timeline and get back to where he belongs – if his future is even still possible.
1. When and Where

_Historian's Note:_

_This is the third in a series of adventures set in the universe first created by _Elegy for a Chat_, roughly taking place immediately after _Sweethearts Ball _and in that gray area of time that may or may not have existed between the second and third seasons of _Miraculous_. Though not required reading, you might find it beneficial to review those before continuing._

_This story was written before the third season of _Miraculous_ had been released in the United States; though the author attempted to avoid spoilers at all costs, they did become aware of a few plot points that were planned as part of that season but not before a substantial portion of this story had been completed. Any similarity of this tale to episode(s) that aired in the third season are purely coincidental and more due to logical intuition on the part of the author based on what had aired up to season three._

* * *

_**Ladybug (present day)**_

Chat was purring as he leaned closer to kiss me; I couldn't help but smile. The evening had been everything we had hoped it would be, short of Adrien actually taking me to the dance in person. We'd have to revisit our plan to "out" our relationship with our school, but there was plenty of time to decide our next move. Right now, I was focusing in on his impending approach, and closed my eyes in anticipation of his very gentle, but very _right _kiss as he planted those lips on me.

And I waited, puckered.

And waited.

"Chat?" I said, cracking an eye. "What the...?"

_Where did he go so quickly?_

I opened both eyes, and stood up. The candles continued to flicker where we'd left them, but his tablet was missing as well as his backpack. I'd not even heard him flip away, which made it doubly weird. "Chat?" I called, starting to walk the space. "Where are you?"

I'd put on the necklace he'd given me, even though I'd not intended to wear it while transformed into my alter-ego, and my hand went immediately to the Le Chat Noir pendant. It was still there, so clearly he had been there with me. "This is damn peculiar," I whispered, immediately realizing I was quoting one of his favorite movies. That brought a smile to my face, albeit briefly.

I clicked open the yo-yo and triggered the tracking system. No clues immediately appeared, and I was on the verge of switching to the phone function when a faint green paw print faded in.

_Why is he at the park? And how did he get there so quickly?_

Swapping to the phone function, I speed dialed Chat, only to have it go directly to voicemail. I tried several more times with no better result. Having the paw print appear on GPS, but not having him answer was a non sequitur that ratcheted up my concern another notch.

Clicking the yo-yo closed, I tossed it into the air and snagged a chimney to pull myself into the night, swinging through the empty streets of Paris to the small park that was a short walk away from my parent's bakery. I dropped down next to the statue the Mayor had commissioned to celebrate us, and immediately felt something was off.

I turned to examine it more closely. Somehow, it had been swapped out – instead of the two of us in action, it had become a solo work, with a bronze version of me throwing my yo-yo at some unseen akuma. Chat was nowhere to be found. I leaned over and squinted at the dedication plaque, confirming my concern; it was dedicated to the "hero" (singular) of Paris.

"Chat?" I called, concern creeping into my voice. "Are you here?"

Without his natural night vision, I was hampered in searching the park, but despite the faint green paw that persisted on my GPS, Chat was not in the park. I followed as the print moved away from the park, rather quickly actually, and stopped two blocks over; I landed in the middle of the empty street, exactly where the coordinates said he would be, and found nothing.

As it turns out, that wasn't the worst of it. Scanning the street, my eyes fell on one of the ubiquitous billboards that hounded Paris. For months now, I'd been treated to seeing Adrien's smiling face hawking that new perfume of his fathers; tonight, however, a different model was there. Starting to put the pieces together, I blindly began swinging through the city, confirming that there wasn't a single billboard, placard or other advertisement with Adrien on it.

At length I landed outside of the Agreste mansion, needing to physically confirm what the pit in my stomach was trying to tell me. I used the yo-yo to swing over the fence and landed gently at the window outside of Adrien's bedroom. Per usual, he'd left it open for his return that evening, but the lights were off in the room. Carefully, I pulled myself over the sill. "Adrien?" I asked quietly. "Are you here?"

The silence hung heavily.

I snapped open the yo-yo, turning on the flashlight function in the process, and stifled a gasp. As I swung the light around, nothing in the room was familiar. Where the computer had been, a fully stocked bar now existed; the bed, a small round dining table. The couch had been replaced by several cozy reading chairs, replete with lamps; the grand piano was completely missing. There was no door to a bathroom. As far as I could tell, there had _never _been a bathroom in the first place.

No trace of Adrien existed in the space.

I froze, hearing footsteps approaching, and quickly shot the yo-yo out the window and pulled myself to safety, landing on the rooftop overlooking the mansion. I fingered the pendant again as my eyes roamed over the building. "Where are you, kitty?" I asked the silence.

It didn't hold any answers.

* * *

_**Chat Noir (in the past)**_

Ladybug continued to glare at me and I shifted gears.

Clearly this was not the right time for me to delve into the metaphysics of what I was now seriously thinking had been some sort of time travel; I rotated the ring she had given – wait, will give? - me and tried for a conciliatory tone. "Trust me when I tell you that nothing is wrong with me," I said. "Let's take care of Stormy Weather and then I'll try again to explain what seems to have happened to me." I dropped all of my Chat Noir pretense and went for the bombshell to convince her. "I know who you are, because you'll tell me."

I waited a beat. "Because you also know who I am, too."

Emotions flashed on her face faster than I could process them, but something clicked behind her eyes. "I _will _tell you?" she correctly repeated.

"Yes," I said, then amended: "Well, technically, you'll make a series of little mistakes that will lead me to realize who you are." I smiled again. "It turns out to be a good thing."

"What makes you think I don't know who you are under that mask right now?"

I smiled a Chat smile. "That would've been the answer to a lot of the dreams I'd at this point," I laughed a little slyly. "But you don't."

She nodded, for the moment ignoring the gathering storm around us. "'Had at this point,'" she repeated. "You seem a bit mixed up on your tenses, Chat."

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I'm not. You're hearing me correctly."

"All right," she said, coming to some sort of decision. "We'll deal with this later. Now, are you coming or not?"

"Of course, milady," I replied. I saw her quirk an eyebrow, and I realized I was possibly a bit early in introducing that particular affectionate moniker.

She shot up into the darkening sky, and I followed her, trying desperately to remember _exactly _how I had handled this akumatized villain. Something in the back of my head was warning me against making too many changes in how the past unfolded in order to ensure that the future – my future – remained as it should be. But I hadn't exactly been keeping notes about my life, either.

We landed in the street just behind Stormy, who was floating toward the television station. I was pretty sure I'd said back then: "You just won yourself a cat fight!"

I started running toward her, while Ladybug held back. Stormy turned toward me and said something, pointed her umbrella at the street and coated it with ice, which (as I now remembered) I started to skid over. Before I had a chance to claw into the surface, she blasted me backward with another burst of wind. I sighed as I started to get blown down the street, knowing that (once again) Ladybug was going to...

"Gotcha!" she said as she grabbed my tail and pulled me to safety.

"That hurts, milady," I winced quietly as we watched Stormy blast away a billboard. Then: "A little Chat Noir will take the wind out of her sails!" I cried, and started after Stormy once more only to have Ladybug grab me by the tail _again_.

_What is it with that, anyway?_

"Whoa, kitty," she said as I gently massaged the end of my tail. "You better think before you leap!"

This was getting old, but I kept playing along. "You got a plan?"

"Just follow my lead," she said.

It was easier to switch to automatic at that point and allow the muscle memory to play out. We were once again nearly crushed by a bus, I used my night vision to escape from the darkened television studio, and at length we wound up back atop the television station working the Lucky Charm to free the akuma from Stormy's umbrella. I couldn't believe how much of it I had remembered, but was also sure that I'd done a few things differently since the "current" version of me had a few more villains under the bell, as it were.

The clouds parted, the sun came back out, and we stood together for what I think was one of our earliest post-victory celebrations: a fist pump with a mutual "Pound it!"

We'd used our secret super powers, so both my ring and her earrings were chirping madly. She motioned and we left the rooftop and made our way by unspoken agreement to the park; I landed back on the fencepost, and she dropped gently to the sidewalk below. "Here is where we part for now," she said. "I have something I need to do first, but then I will meet you right back here, say around seven?"

"Purrfect, milady," I said, as my ring chirped the next-to-final warning. I leapt away and found the same spot I'd used earlier (like, _months_ earlier) to transform back to Adrien.

* * *

_**Adrien (in the past)**_

Except, I was still wearing the suit I'd put on for the Ball. Not the clothes I was supposed to have on for the photo shoot I was about to return to. The same photo shoot that Marinette was about to crash.

Plagg came floating out and I tossed him the last piece of Camembert I'd hidden in the suit. "Tell me this is some sort of really bad dream," I begged.

"I don't think so, Adrien," he said as he polished off the cheese in a single gulp. "I usually have something of a connection to the other kwamis, but the silence tells me I'm alone at the moment. And we know that there are other kwamis around, having just seen Ladybug in action."

"So I am _me_, then, from some point in the future? Somehow gloriously reliving my early days as Chat Noir?"

He looked pensive. "We need to be really careful, Adrien. It's possible that changes made while you are here could impact what you find when you return to your proper time." He flew a little closer. "For example, defeating one of the upcoming villains in a way that wouldn't be possible without a little foresight."

"Adrien?" I heard the photographer call. "Are you okay?"

I continued to huddle behind the tree I was stationed at. "Yes!" I replied loudly. "Be there in a minute." I turned back to Plagg. "But you think we _can_ get back? To our correct point in the timeline?"

The Kwami of Destruction shook his head. "I have no idea."

"Adrien?" the photographer said again, louder.

"I can't go back like this," I said. "It'll ruin the shoot!" My eyes scanned the area and landed on the small trailer they'd parked outside the gate. The makeup artist had redone my hair and added the required makeup for the shoot inside that tiny space, and unless I missed my mark, a backup set of my attire for the afternoon had been hanging on the rack. Plagg ducked back into my pocket and I made a mad dash to the trailer, as fast as the wingtips would allow, and was lucky enough to find it unlocked and empty.

I shucked out of my suit and into a more normal looking set of everyday Adrien attire, pocketed Plagg once more and made my way back to the set. The photographer was in a foul mood at my tardiness, but I saw I was just a half-step ahead of Marinette and that little urchin she'd brought to the park with her that afternoon. I set my smile to "on" while cringing inside at what I knew was coming next.

Again on automatic, I watched as Marinette announced she was ready to be in the photo, and then saw the photographer swoop in for the urchin instead, which he placed in my hands giddily. I pulled out all of the tricks I had in the model book to emote the way I thought I had the first time, and must have been successful. We had minimal reshoots and wrapped a bit more than an hour later.

Gorilla was waiting for me outside the gate; I made him wait while I retrieved my favorite suit from the trailer (cringing as I stuffed it into my satchel) and then he whisked me back to the mansion. If I didn't know what had happened to me, I'd have assumed it was just another day in the life of Adrien Agreste.

Nathalie met me at the door, and we had the standard "no dinner with your father" discussion. I shrugged, uncertain if I'd had a pithy comment all those months ago. Then, it was still a fresh scar that he'd started to ignore me; now, I was used to it, and in fact, perhaps a bit more independent as a result of it. My room was more or less the same as I'd left it earlier that day, save for the change in schoolwork awaiting me on the desk. I wondered if having done the homework once would make it faster the second time around as I dropped my bag and returned to the dining room to eat alone, again.

I pushed the food around on the plate, not terribly interested in eating, realizing that in my brain, I'd just left Ladybug on that rooftop no more than four hours earlier. In this timeline, it was close to six o'clock in the evening, so even my internal clock didn't really line up. But I felt as tired as I should have been, having been awake for more than twenty at that point.

I'd seen enough science fiction to have some theories on time travel, and found myself musing. Was I caught in one of those situations where something in the past has gone off the rails, and I had to correct it in order to restore the future? Or was I in some sort of quantum physics alternative reality, where this timeline was unspooling separately and in parallel from the one I had been living in up until a few hours ago? Maybe I was predestined to return to the past for some sort of heroic quest.

One thing that troubled me was that if I had returned to the past, once before, the "me" at that time apparently didn't encounter the "me" from the future and therefore had no memory of the event. It was hard to wrap my brain around that, but it felt like this might be the "first" time I'd gone backwards in time.

If I were being honest with myself, I was hoping it was the first option, and not the second. I really wanted to get back to the way my life had turned out and had no desire to relive these first few months finding my way as Chat Noir. Those had been tough the first time around, littered with dumb mistakes as a hero and more than a few missteps in my dogged pursuit of Ladybug.

I pushed back from the table and returned to my room. Plagg flew out from my shirt and nibbled on a slice of cheese I'd slid to him under the table. "I may have already told her too much," I lamented to him. "But I think I'm going to need her help to get back."

"Her and Master Fu," he said thoughtfully. He looked at me with seriousness I'd rarely seen in his eyes. "Be as honest as you can with her," he offered. "She'll have to make up her own mind. And be prepared that she won't initially believe you."

I sighed again. This was going to be harder than I thought. Ladybug and I had covered so much ground already that starting over at nothing was almost cruel; having the dire situation I'd found myself in possibly forcing me to compress all of that relationship building into a very, very short period of time made it all the more horrible.

The phone went into the dock, set to play some random piano pieces. "Plagg, claws out," I said, not all enthusiastically. The green flash enveloped me and in short order I was again standing in my room as Chat Noir. But I hesitated; normally, I would have bounded out the window to embrace the freedom my heroic alter-ego offered. Tonight, I was deathly worried I might mess up more than just a relationship.

My very existence felt like it was on the line.


	2. Past Prologue

_**Chat Noir (in the past)**_

I landed on the fence outside the park, customarily early, and popped open my baton to see if I could get a bead on Ladybug. The GPS tracker didn't show anything, but that wasn't surprising. Marinette lived literally next to the park, so it was but a short matter for her to transform and then circle back around from another direction. I flicked a glance at her rooftop and quickly looked away, not wanting to catch her in the act of escaping from her parent's home.

My eyes instead fell on what had become our favorite romantic rooftop, one that (in the current timeline) I wouldn't start using for a few more months yet when I began a more tactical approach toward wooing Ladybug. It felt odd seeing it for what it would become.

The tracker beeped, and a faded red bug symbol appeared, but it was multiple blocks distant. I couldn't remember exactly what our schedules had been that day, but I was pretty sure I remembered that Marinette had been babysitting that little urchin, though with an assist from Ayla. Yet her dot was moving away from the park, and not toward Ayla or even the mansion for that matter. Wondering why she had changed her mind, I started to put the baton away and give chase when my feline ears heard the telltale _ziiiing! _of the Ladybug yo-yo. I looked back at the bakery and my enhanced vision confirmed her lithe form somersaulting away from the rooftop, starting her giant arc around the park.

The baton wasn't showing that. The red dot continued to move away from me. My brow crinkled.

My feline ears swiveled toward the sidewalk as Ladybug gracefully dropped to the ground. "Hello, Chat," she said neutrally. "Ready to talk?"

"Yes," I said thoughtfully, still seeing no indication on my baton for Ladybug being anywhere close to me. "But first, where does your GPS show me?"

She frowned. "Is that some sort of cat riddle?" she asked. "I presume right in front of me."

"Humor me," I said, adding a tiny bit of mewling to underscore my pleading.

Ladybug shrugged and pulled out her yo-yo, clicking it open. She started to say something, but halted once she scanned her screen. I watched as she fiddled with it, then looked up at me with a menacing glare. "Look, I don't know who or what you are," she said with the tone she normally reserved for Hawkmoth's villains, "but I'm through playing games!"

The yo-yo came at me lightning fast, but my feline reflexes were slightly faster as I bounded off the fence and somersaulted into the park proper. "Hang on just a second!" I yelled, as I tried to avoid her repeated yo-yo attacks. "I can explain!"

I bounded up and away and over another round with the yo-yo, coming down on all fours across from her and close to the fountain. At this early stage in our super hero lives, Ladybug had been slightly better at using her yo-yo than I'd been with the baton. Knowing that didn't make it any easier to avoid her, though. "You don't appear on my baton, either," I said, kicking back another blow from the yo-yo, and then spinning my baton into shield mode to bat it back again.

"If it's a real baton," she said, slinging it at me again. "What are you, some sort of copy cat villain?"

"No," I groaned, although we would face that very prospect in a few weeks. I still had nightmares about tiny ceramic kittens. "I _am_ Chat Noir," I tried again. "Just not _your _Chat Noir."

"What does that even mean?" she asked, pausing in her attack.

I relaxed my stance slightly. "Just what it sounds like," I offered. "I'm-ooof!"

It was classic Ladybug. She took my moment of inattention to swiftly snake the yo-yo around me multiple times and pull it tight, wrapping me up in bands of what for all the world felt like hardened steel. I tried to flex out of it but was held fast, and toppled over on my side, loosing my baton in the process. She threw the other end over a convenient tree and hauled me up, letting me hang upside down a few feet from the ground.

"Now," she said. "Where is it?"

"Where is _what_?" I replied angrily, ears flattening. I was more upset my mistake than anything else, and channeled it into some thrashing to try and loosen the strands which garnered me a bop on the head with the business end of the yo-yo.

_Seriously?_

"The akuma." She started to search me, and not gently I might add. Under other circumstances I would have welcomed that level of personal attention from Ladybug, but this was not one of them.

"There's nothing to find," I growled. "Would you just _listen to me for a moment_?"

She paused, and leaned toward my ring hand. "That is a little obvious, but maybe not."

I twisted as best as I could away from her. "Ladybug, please! Just give me a moment to explain!"

"Don't worry," she said pleasantly as she started to wiggle the ring off my finger. "You won't remember any of this once I've de-evilized your akuma." She looked back at my eyes. "Whoever you are."

"I'm _Chat Noir!_" I growled loudly, ears now firmly flattened against my hair, thrashing more violently this time and managing to swing away from her probing fingers slightly. "I'm _not _some akumatized victim of Hawkmoth," I continued, loudly. "I'm your _partner_. I will _always_ be your partner. I trust you with my life."

She yanked on the yo-yo, tightening the bands more than I thought possible and making it nearly impossible for me to move. "Stop talking," she said simply as she halted my swing and started to turn me around so she could return to the ring.

"Purrfect," I said. I had two moves left. "Check out the other ring first, milady," I prompted, taking the first one.

"What other ring?"

"Check the other hand, Ladybug."

She turned me around and leaned down to the ring that Marinette had given me earlier. "So that is where the akuma is?" Ladybug asked. "I'll give you this, it's a beautiful design." She leaned closer. "Celtic love ring, isn't it?" She leaned even closer. "Is that… is that ladybug motif?"

"Yes," I said, holding my breath. _Keep looking._

"It is beautifully done," she repeated. "I've only seen a design like this in one other place," she said thoughtfully.

"I know." I waited patiently for a heartbeat or two.

Ladybug swung me around, and looked me directly in the eye. Admittedly, it was a bit weird as I was upside down, but I thought it was a good sign she'd not tried for the Miraculous again. "Who gave this to you?" she asked.

"Look at it again," I said quietly.

She leaned down again, this time getting within a few centimeters. Once she found what I knew she would find, I heard a quick intake of breath and she snapped up to stare at me.

"The person who gave it to me told me quite clearly there was only one designer in all of Paris who could create something so beautiful." I paused. "And something that so perfectly captured both the person giving it, and the person to whom it was given."

Her mouth was agape. "Only my grandmother uses that particular twist," she said quietly. "It's her signature."

"Yes," I replied.

Ladybug stepped back from me, and I swung slightly in the night air. "_Who gave it to you?_" she demanded, though from her eyes, I could tell she already knew the answer.

"Before I answer that," I started, "I want you to know that I may not be able to answer all of your questions as fully as I would like. If you let me explain a bit more, you'll understand the wisdom of my position. Will you let me do that?"

She nodded.

I took a deep breath, or as deeply as I could given the constriction of the bands. "To be technically correct, you will give that ring to me on the night of the Sweethearts Ball."

"The Sweethearts Ball?" she asked. "That's next Spring."

"Yes." I paused. "We'll have fought more than thirty akumas by then," I added, "including one that very night that nearly killed you." I realized that may have been more information that I should have provided, and inadvertently made it worse by blurting out: "That's nothing, though; I got shot with something that prevented me from de-transforming from Chat Noir and briefly died a few months prior to that myself."

Her eyes went wide. "You… died?"

"It sounds worse than it was," I laughed nervously. "But you saved me. And Master Fu, for that matter." I smiled. "I returned the favor at the Ball."

She flipped open the yo-yo and again confirmed that my position wasn't appearing on the GPS. "Show me your baton," she said.

"Milady, that would be a bit difficult, given my current purrsition," I said, eyes indicating my inability to move a muscle. "But you are welcome to take it."

Ladybug followed my eye movement and retrieved the baton where it had fallen out of my hand, and clicked open the tracker function. As I'd anticipated, the faded red bug appeared, but showed Ladybug on the far side of the city. "This says I'm at the Eiffel Tower," she breathed. She looked up at me. "But I'm obviously not there."

"Obviously," I concurred. "Look, I don't know if we've made any progress here or not, but the blood is seriously running to my head…"

"Oh!" she said, apologetically. "I'm sorry, hang on –"

She twisted the yo-yo and I dropped unceremoniously down to the grass, hard, and felt the bands rewind. It was prudent not to complain, but I did rub an elbow that had hit especially hard. I stood up and tentatively held out my hand for the baton, which she returned to me.

I pointed to the dot with a claw tip. "I don't understand fully what happened yet, but I think this is you. More specifically, _future _you, since this baton exists in the same timeline as _that _Ladybug." I pointed to her yo-yo. "Your yo-yo would be tied to the Chat that should exist in _this_ timeline, and your inability to find him tells me that he's no longer here – I've somehow replaced him."

"You don't think you swapped places, somehow?" she said, immediately following my logic.

"I'm not sure, but no," I said, again pointing to the yo-yo. "Otherwise, you'd see him on your GPS." I looked at her again. "I think Ladybug, from my timeline, is seeing me just like I'm seeing her, but can't find me."

"It's probably driving her crazy," Ladybug said, smiling for the first time. "It would me."

"I know," I said, smiling.

She started to twirl her yo-yo and my heart leapt a bit at the familiar movement. "So, let me get this straight. You really are Chat Noir, but you're actually from almost a year in the future."

"That's right."

"And you took – wait, _will take _\- me to the Sweethearts Ball?"

"Well, technically I take Marinette," I said, cracking the door open a bit, hoping she'd make some connections on her own.

"As Chat Noir?" she asked, incredulously. "I can't believe I'd go for that."

"You did," I said, waiting a beat before adding, "because my alter-ego wasn't able to take you." I smiled at her. "You had come up with a typically complicated plan to get our classmates to accept us as a couple, and the Ball was supposed to be our big moment to shine."

"I'm dating your alter-ego, a year from now?"

"Ladybug will date Chat Noir first…" I said, winking. "But yes, you'll begin dating me in civilian life a few months before the Ball."

"Your alter-ego," she repeated, suddenly looking at me differently. "I'm dating your alter-ego?"

"Well, you will be," I repeated. I raised my hands to indicate the park, and the timeline in general. "But not at this point in our timeline," I reminded her. "Right now, you find me irritating and my advances 'childish' if I recall correctly."

"I think I've said that," Ladybug murmured.

"You have," I agreed. "And it was true, at the time. But I'll grow on you."

Ladybug smiled a bit at that. "While I find that hard to believe," she started, staring at me with those piercing blue eyes of hers, "you've never lied to me. Ever." I wanted to sweep her up in a massive hug but starting twirling my tail instead (ouch!).

"Not planning on starting anytime soon," I replied.

"So you know my true identity." It was more like a confirmation than a question.

"Yes."

"And I know yours?"

I smiled. "Yes."

She bit her lip. "But I don't know, yet."

"No," I confirmed. "And to be honest, I'm not sure how much of an issue that would be at this point if you did know. I let the cat out of the bag when I called you by your real name earlier." I looked to the sky and the moon that was just peeking out over the horizon. "So far, the heavens haven't crashed down on me."

Ladybug nodded slowly. "I think you're right," she agreed. "Especially if you are who I think you are."

I had the good nature to look shocked. "Milady, it took me months to piece together your secret identity..."

She smiled, warmly. "You've done a few unusual things today, Chat. Not necessarily unlike yourself, of course; more like a blending of this personality and the one that is hidden behind the mask."

I felt myself smiling wider. "I've learned a thing or two in the time I've spent by your side, milady. And I've recently come to an understanding that the two sides of my life are not, actually, separate but rather very interdependent. And that I can be both Chat Noir and -" I swallowed, plunging forward with my final move, "- Adrien Agreste at the same time."

She nodded again, as if I'd confirmed her suspicion. "Adrien," she repeated.

"Come with me," I said, holding out my paw.

Ladybug accepted and I gently wrapped an arm around her waist, careful to be less familiar with her than my own Ladybug. (That was hard to do.) I then leapt up and away from the park, heading over the rooftops toward my favorite spot, landing gracefully along the centerline.

"This rooftop has some special meaning for me," I said as she stepped a bit away from me. "So it feels appropriate that I do this here." I closed my eyes. "Plagg - claws in."

Ladybug gasped as the green flash enveloped me and removed the Chat Noir costume, replacing it with my standard street attire. I reopened my eyes to see her with a hand to her mouth, eyes wide. "It's all true, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said as I stepped toward her, gently moving a lock of hair back away from her mask. "Especially the part where I am deeply, hopelessly in love with you."

She looked at me askance. "With Ladybug?" she asked, masked eyebrow raised. "Or Marinette?"

"With _you_," I said, finally hugging her. "Like me, you are both at the same time. And always have been." I sighed. "I was a fool for not seeing it right away."

Ladybug nestled into my chest. "I can't tell you how many times I've dreamed of doing this," she said.

"Oh," I replied, stroking her head. "I think I can relate."

She pulled back a bit. "This is going to be awkward if I get _my_ Chat back," she said.

I stepped back myself. "Plagg - claws out!" I said, retransforming. Once the glow had faded a second time, I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, and we leaned against the railing overlooking Notre Dame.

"I have a thought about that," I mused. "But I think I'll need your help." I turned to her. "Both here _and _in the future."

* * *

_**Ladybug (present day)**_

I'd been going for more than twenty hours, scouring the city to find Chat. Each time the green paw moved, I was soaring through the sky; but each time I would arrive to find no trace of my partner. I was tired enough that my logical brain had long since stopped trying to tell me that it was madness to continue, so the emotional part of me took over completely, forcing me to peer under every bloody rock to find my kitty cat.

At hour twenty-one, I finally put the search on hold and snuck back into my room. It was late, very, very late, and I had to be at school in a few hours. Getting some rest was warranted, but even after transforming back to Marinette and climbing into bed, I remained wide awake, staring at the ceiling and trying to process what had happened.

He had disappeared, right in front of me. And despite the fact I couldn't physically find him, the yo-yo would indicate that he was _somewhere_ and findable. Which itself was a conundrum. How could it "see" Chat, but I was somehow unable to do so?

_It's like he's not here, but he is._

I rolled over, and, oddly, started to think about our evening together and those corny movies we'd been watching. He'd been so thrilled that I was willing to screen them with him, and to my horror, I'd actually liked them. Especially that last one, when they go back in time to save the whales...

_Go back in time._

I sat up. Adrien was more into science fiction than I was, but I was pretty sure he'd talked me through a few of his favorite time travel storylines, and all of them seemed to hinge on something changing the past – and the hero having to go back and correct it. The pieces fell together:

_The statue in the park didn't have Chat Noir._

_No advertising with Adrien anywhere in the city._

_Adrien's bedroom wasn't a bedroom any longer._

Adrien wasn't missing. He had been _erased _from time, or at least, this timeline. But my yo-yo was still connected to him, somehow, which had to mean he was still alive, but just not in _this _timeline.

_Is that even possible? There's one person who might know._

Reluctantly, I called out Tikki. "We have to make a stop at Master Fu's," I said to the tired kwami who floated up to me. "He might have some answers for us."

"Okay, Marinette," she said, stifling a tiny yawn.

"Tikki - spots on!"

After the flash receded, I hauled myself back through the skylight and hurtled across the city to Master Fu's apartment, cognizant that I would likely be rousting him out of bed and already feeling miserable about doing it. I was panicked enough about what had happened to Chat, though, that I skipped stopping a block or so away to transform back to Marinette, instead heading straight to his balcony window and dropping just outside the sliding glass door. Hesitating for just a moment, I gently wrapped on the window.

Master Fu had somehow known of my arrival and immediately slid the door open, pulling me in quickly. "I've been expecting you," he said without preamble. "You should have changed back, Ladybug, but I understand why you didn't."

He indicated that I should sit on his mat, and he joined me. "The Cat Miraculous is no longer in Paris," he said perfunctorily. "What's more, the other kwamis have told me they are unable to make contact with Plagg."

I nodded. "That confirms part of my theory," I said.

Fu raised an eyebrow at me. "Care to fill me in?" he asked.

I looked at my hands, clasped in my lap, hair falling forward as I did so. "Chat took me to the Ball last night," I began, filling in the details of our last evening together. Master Fu listened patiently without expression, prompting me for more details in a few areas but otherwise made no comments with respect to Adrien's rather unorthodox use of his powers on that particular evening. Chat and I had talked about it on several occasions during our regular date nights – while Master Fu had never explicitly told us we were not allowed to be social with each other while transformed, we had nevertheless suspected he would be less than thrilled and would likely have encouraged us to keep the actual dating activities to our civilian personas.

Fu's eyes as he watched me tell the story seemed to underscore that we were on the right track, though I also knew in that instant that nothing would prevent Chat from being Chat short of revoking his Miraculous privileges outright.

And, as I thought more about it, the same actually went for me. It felt completely right for us to be together whether in or out of costume.

I finished by telling him about the final kiss. "He was literally about to say goodnight in a very romantic way when he simply vanished." I looked away for a moment. "I never heard him leave, but his stuff was gone – backpack, tablet and the like." I looked back. "The yo-yo showed his position in the park, so I immediately went there thinking something terrible had happened; he wasn't there, or in the other three hundred odd places I've tried to find him since."

I pulled out the yo-yo and clicked it open to the GPS. The green paw was there, this time at the rooftop across from Notre Dame – his favorite spot in the city. "He still shows up here, and I've driven myself mad trying to locate him."

I looked back at Master Fu. "But there is absolutely no visible trace of either Chat Noir or Adrien anywhere in this city. It's like he has been wiped away from history. Like I said, even his rooms at the mansion have reset."

"Interesting," Fu said.

"So," I continued, "I don't understand why I can still see him on this -" I indicated the yo-yo, "-other than the possibility that he's not some_where _but rather some_when_."

Fu nodded. "I think you will find in class today that no one in Paris has ever heard of Adrien Agreste, or Chat Noir," he said as he stroked his beard. "If this is what I suspect it is, current Miraculous Holders were not affected by the change in the timeline since their kwami magic insulated them." He pointed to my yo-yo. "He is alive, Ladybug; of that, I am sure. I'm less certain how we can retrieve him and repair the damage to the timeline."

"I'm right?" I said, astonished. "This really is one of his sci-fi fantasies?"

Fu smiled. "You are very smart, young woman. Why you doubt yourself, even now, is beyond my comprehension." He remained pensive. "In fact, I think you hit on why he went back in time."

He stood up, ushering me back to the balcony. "Mistress Time is _the_ mystery of mysteries," he said. "How it works, and flows, is beyond even the understanding of those who made it their life's work to untangle the web of eddies." He paused at the door. "It might be wise to assume that Mistress Time did indeed pull Chat Noir back to help her correct whatever went wrong. But I also suspect she's not provided him with any answers, and very little help."

I placed a hand on the door jam. "But if he did go back in time, and it was here in Paris as my yo-yo indicates, it would be logical to assume he will interact with one or both of us. Why don't I remember that happening?" I looked at him pleadingly.

Fu placed a gentle hand on my costumed shoulder. "Chat is likely stuck in one of those eddies right now, my dear. And if he _is_ able to correct the timeline, what happens while he is back there will have never taken place."

He smiled gently. "The fact that we don't remember anything is, at least right now, a very good thing." Fu gently pushed me back through the door. "I'll do more research here to see if we can do anything to help Chat; stop by late tomorrow evening if you can. Now go get some rest."

"I will," I promised, and hurled my yo-yo back to the sky.

_Hang on, kitty. Help is coming._

* * *

_**Editor's Note: Try as I might, a tiny continuity error crept into this chapter. Eagle-eyed readers may have spotted it, but rest assured, it has now been corrected. ;-)**_


	3. Comingled Timelines

_**Chat Noir (in the past)**_

"I'm starting to think that your missing Chat is why I am here," I said as we continued to stand at the railing. "If this is the sort of wild science fiction time travel situation I think it is, I need to figure out what made him disappear, which, ironically, is what makes _me_ disappear in the future."

Ladybug turned to me. "Wait, are you saying that my Chat is actually you, but not?" She frowned. "I am so confused now."

"'The future is the past, the past is the future – it gives me a headache,'" I laughed, yet again quoting a favorite line. "Try not to think about it too hard. It helps."

The lights on the cathedral were as breathtaking for me as ever, making it harder to remember that I was not where I was supposed to be. "Anyway, if we can find that trigger moment and stop it from happening, I should wind up back in my time, and your Chat will reappear here."

I looked down into her blue eyes. "There is also a good chance that it will restore the timeline," I said, soberly. "You likely won't remember any of this, if we pull it off."

"Meaning I'll have to wait barely a year to claim you as my own?" she smiled. "That's a deal I'd take any day, and twice on Tuesday."

I hugged her closely, and leaned into her to plant a light kiss on her cheek. It felt a bit like cheating on Ladybug – _my _Ladybug – to plant one on her lips. "Thank you, bugaboo," I said, snuggling into her hair.

"So where do we go from here?" she asked, looking to me for a plan.

That was new. "Well," I said, "I don't know enough about what happened yet. My sense is that I should see how the next few days play out and try to note any oddities from how I remember the original events happening."

She nodded. "That makes sense, especially since you are the only one who will notice a difference." She ran a finger over the ring future her gave me. "And Chat?"

"Yes, milady?"

"You realize you can't reveal what you know about the villains we have coming up, right? We've got to take them down _exactly_ as we did before." She placed a hand to my masked face. "I already know you well enough to recognize that you'd likely try to short circuit any situation where you already know I'll get hurt or caught unawares." Ladybug paused. "If I understand what you've told me, that could further change the timeline, making our job all the tougher."

I sighed. I had thought to do that exact thing despite Plagg giving me the same warning earlier. "Right as always, milady," I said morosely.

She hugged me and stepped away. "All right, we need to get home and ready for school tomorrow," she said pleasantly. "I have to admit, it will be hard for me to stay in character as 'smitten Marinette.'"

"I'll have a similar problem, milady," I replied with a smirk, "but I have superior model training and can emote on command."

"Chat!" she said, smacking me on the arm. Her eyes widened. "Those are bigger than I thought," she said, reexamining my bicep.

"It's called the 'Super Hero Workout,'" I said as I leapt to the railing. "Results in just under a year!"

Her delighted chuckles faded away from me as I vaulted across the skyscape and back to the mansion, sneaking back in just as the final music file ended on the phone. It had been less than an hour with Ladybug, but felt like the whole evening had passed.

"Plagg – claws in!"

The wave of green energy rolled over me and Plagg fluttered away to his cache, where he frowned. "This was before we'd agreed on a specific brand," he said sadly. "These are terrible."

"Sorry, pal," I said as I pulled out the chair and settled in at my desk. "I'll correct that in the morning."

"You can't," he reminded me as he floated over my desk, holding one of the acrid pieces of Camembert he'd found. "We don't have that discussion for another two weeks."

"I hope you remember more about what happened than I do," I said as I tried to make sense of the assignments I'd left myself. It looked like I'd been in the middle of a geometric take home exam when I'd left for the photo shoot. That and a physics assignment due (egads) in three days. I remembered that assignment – it was the same one Chloe asked Chat Noir to do for her while he was guarding her from the Evilstrator.

_Well, that answers when the next akuma was due._

Physics made me think of my baton. "Plagg, how is it that I can see Ladybug on my baton?"

He munched, never dropping as much as a crumb in the process. "Your explanation to Ladybug was on the money; despite being in a different place on the timeline, the two of you are still connected. Quite literally across time."

My eyes lit up. "How far does the connection go? Can you talk to Tikki?"

"No," he said. "And before you ask again, I've already told you I'm not in contact with any of the kwamis in this timeline."

"Would the phone work?"

That made him pause. "Actually, Adrien, I don't know…"

Before he could change his mind, I held out the ring: "Plagg – claws out!"

I went through the transformation sequence and once I was back to being Chat Noir, quietly snuck back out the window and bounded several rooftops away from the mansion. I crouched there, and flipped open the GPS tracker. Ladybug was stationary, and apparently at the Bakery.

I snapped it shut and extended it into vault mode, making my way toward the Bakery, unsure how I knew that any chance of making a connection might hinge on close proximity. I didn't want to drop in on the current Ladybug, so I stationed myself on the roof just above her patio. Fortunately, she didn't appear to be wishing on a star. I flipped the phone open, prayed, and speed dialed Ladybug.

It rang.

A very fuzzy image of Ladybug appeared. "Chat? Is that—" The image burst into static, then reformed into a stop-motion animation version of my beloved. She was mouthing something, but the audio wasn't getting through.

"Ladybug! _Ladybug_!" I said, trying to get through the static on the connection. "I'm okay!"

More static washed over the connection, then the image vanished to be replaced by the "no signal" icon.

_Merde._

I tried redialing multiple times and wasn't able to reconnect, then flipped open the GPS tracker. The ladybug logo had disappeared, and I fervently hoped that meant she had simply transformed back to Marinette – and not that I had completely lost contact with the future.

I clicked it closed and dejectedly climbed down the side of the bakery and slowly walked to the park next door, then sat at the edge of the fountain, head in my hands. I really needed to get back home and finish the work due tomorrow, but it was hard to get my head into it.

For the first time in a long, long time, I felt very much alone. More than even during the darkest moments I'd had cooped up in my bedroom before Plagg appeared on my coffee table. My head sunk lower into my hands and I let out a long, very un-Chat like sigh.

My ears swiveled backwards and heard Ladybug's approach. I didn't turn, though, when she quietly dropped down next to me a moment later, then gently sat down beside me on the edge of the fountain.

I felt her hand on my shoulder. "I saw you out here," she said. "You looked like you could use a friend."

I placed a paw on her hand. "Thanks."

"And some macaroons," she continued unexpectedly, pulling out one of those familiar boxes from the Bakery. That did make me turn, the divine smell of almond tickling my feline sense of smell.

"Wow!" I said a bit too excitedly. My stomach simultaneously reminded me I'd essentially skipped dinner with a loud rumble.

Ladybug laughed. "Easy, kitty," she said as she cracked open the cardboard and handed me a half-dozen in one easy movement. I tried not to inhale them at the same time.

"Now," she said as I munched happily, "tell me about it."

I knew my eyes were narrowing with the joyful bliss I experienced each time I enjoyed something from the Bakery, but couldn't help it. It was as close as I'd felt to normal since this whole mess had started. I sighed again, a far happier sound than earlier.

"Well," I started around a mouthful of cookie, "I was doing that awful Physics assignment when it dawned on me that maybe more than the GPS on the baton might be connected to the future. I ran it past Plagg and he wasn't entirely certain, so I transformed back to Chat."

She nodded, silently allowing me to continue.

"I'm not sure why I thought it, but it seemed logical that if I were close to where Ladybug appeared to be on the GPS, I might have a better chance of contacting her. She happened to be there -" I inclined my head toward the Bakery, continuing, "-but I didn't want to wake you. So I got as close as I could and tried to call her."

I looked at her. "The whole thing sounds dumb now that I say it out loud," I added. "But it worked!"

"It did?" her eyes opened wider.

"Well, for a few seconds at least. Then it broke up and I wasn't able to reconnect."

"Did you get through, though? Does she – do I – know you're here?"

"I hope so," I said, with just a trace of optimism.

* * *

_**Ladybug (present day)**_

I stared at the yo-yo screen for what felt like a millennium, willing it to burst back into life again. For a fraction of a second, I had connected with Chat – or, at least, I'd hoped it was Chat – but the call had terminated, and I'd been unable to get him back. The tracker still showed that he was active, and in point of fact, just across the street at the park outside my window. I halfheartedly walked to the window and stared out, half expecting to see his blond mane topped by those extremely cute cat ears; I went further and pictured him staring back at me, sly smile on his face, as he often did.

With his fashion model sense, he'd created a costume that had accentuated his natural good looks in a way that had made him irresistible to his legion of admirers in Paris. In the early days, I'd tried not to let it affect me, but as we got closer as partners, I couldn't deny my eyes had been drawn to his classical proportions tricked out in that _extremely_ form fitting fabric. It hadn't helped, either, that during Chat's pursuit of me, he'd worked every trick in the book to get my attention.

I felt myself smiling fondly. We'd both been fools, not seeing what was directly in front of us at the time. That had changed during the Last Walker incident, and we were closer than ever now. But it hadn't stopped Chat from continuing his antics with me when in that damn costume.

_I really miss him, _I thought. _Everything about him, including the way he twirls his tail._

The green paw was still on the yo-yo when I snapped it shut and transformed back to Marinette. Tikki fluttered next to me after the red glow faded, looking concerned. "We'll figure this out, Marinette," she said, hugging my arm to console me.

_I really hope so, _I thought. I turned and looked out the window again.

Chat Noir was sitting on the fencepost.

* * *

_**Chat Noir (present day)**_

"…pick on someone your own temperature?" I was saying as I perched on top of the fencepost outside the park.

Except, there was no one to say it to.

I could have sworn I'd been chatting up an akumatized young woman in a vibrant outfit who'd been holding a mean looking umbrella, but now I appeared to be entirely alone and literally in the dark.

_What time is it? It was sunny just a second ago. Did I pass out?_

I pulled my baton out and the clock said it was still midafternoon. I looked at the sky and could clearly see the stars twinkling; something had to be wrong with the phone function.

I spun slightly on axis, and confirmed the park was empty. There was no trace of the crew that had been on set for the photo shoot; the equipment was gone, the trailer moved. It felt almost as if it had never even happened.

Then my eyes fell on the statue. It _definitely_ hadn't been there earlier this afternoon. I dropped down the fence and loped over to find a reasonably good likeness of Ladybug tossing her yo-yo at someone, and I had to admit it made her look awesome. I was a little surprised at the plaque, though; the bronze bust was dedicated to the "hero" (singular) of Paris.

_Huh_.

The baton was still in my hand, so I popped it open to GPS mode and saw a faint red ladybug blip. It indicated she was on the far side of the city, but also meant she was transformed and could take my call. I flipped to phone mode and dialed her, but it failed to connect on multiple tries. I was about to give up when my feline ears swiveled to pick up the _ziiing!_ of a particular yo-yo.

I turned and smiled as Ladybug dropped down beside me. "Milady," I said, "it's pr-oof!"

She vaulted over and grabbed me into a massive hug, squeezing my breath out. I couldn't help the goofy smile that came, unbidden, to my face. Maybe I was in some sort of dream…?

"Chat! My God, I was so worried!" She pulled back from the hug slightly, but immediately moved up and kissed me passionately.

I went rigid - this was completely out of the ordinary, no matter how much I had prayed for it to happen. She must have felt it, for she pulled back and looked at me in concern. "Chat – are you all right?"

"I'm not sure," I said, "save for the fact that you have just made all of my dreams come true." I think I might have been purring, having not yet mastered the ability to start/stop it on demand.

She let me go and stepped back. "Adrien, what is the last thing you remember?"

My eyes went wide in shock. "How – how-?" I stammered, blundering into confirming her suspicion.

_So much for my secret identity._

"Answer the question."

Her serious tone snapped me back. "I was on top of that fence over there, talking smack to the latest akumatized villain from Hawkmoth," I said.

"Describe it."

I scratched the back of my neck, a very Adrien movement I realized belatedly. "Uh, well, it was a young girl, dressed in a bluish dress holding an umbrella despite the good weather."

"Stormy Weather," Ladybug nodded.

"I was in mid-sentence when I found myself in the dark with no villain."

She nodded again, clearly trying to work out something. The silence extended.

"Nice statue," I said, trying to break the heavy feeling that had settled on us.

"Yes," she murmured. "It used to have both of us."

I looked at it anew. "Wow. I can't believe they changed that quickly."

"It went in almost a year ago, Chat."

I turned back. "You're kidding, right? It wasn't even _here_ this morning when we started the photo shoot."

She pulled me closer again. "I need to tell you something," she said, very seriously. "Although it might be easier to show you."

"Okay…" I said.

"Follow me," she said and leapt into the air.

I spun up my baton and helicoptered beside her. We'd done the maneuver before, but the finesse with which Ladybug was gracefully gliding through the night was new. Almost like she'd done it enough that it was second nature. My biceps were already starting to cramp, so I swapped to vaulting/leaping across rooftops just to keep up with her.

It didn't take long for me to realize we were headed toward the mansion. We dropped to a roof that overlooked the space, and she turned to me. "This is going to come as something of a shock," she warned. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," I said, not at all sure I understood.

She flung her yo-yo through my bedroom window and sailed into the space; I vaulted down to the fence, somersaulted and landed on the windowsill, gripping the edge with one clawed hand. I didn't get any further.

My night vision allowed me to see into the darkened room; Ladybug had thoughtfully kept her yo-yo light off and stood just to the side of me. I felt her place a hand over my paw as I slowly took in what I was seeing.

Nothing about the space was right. The more I looked, the more I realized there was no trace of any of my stuff – no posters, no computer, no _bed_ for that matter. I dropped down to the floor and slowly made my way around the room, confirming the gnawing dread in my belly. There was absolutely no trace of me. Anywhere.

I turned toward where the bathroom should have been and found myself looking for a doorknob where none existed. I swallowed back the panic I was feeling as I pressed my gloved hands to the wall, searching and failing to find any evidence that there had ever actually _been _a door.

I turned back to Ladybug, pained expression on my face and knowing she wouldn't be able to see it. "What happened?" I asked, the anguish plain to hear.

"Plenty," she said. "But we can't stay here."

* * *

**AN: A-hah! Another clue. And another Chat. With two Ladybugs working the problem, I feel confident we might get some answers soon...**


	4. Embracing the Unexpected

_**Chat Noir (present day)**_

My head was spinning as I followed Ladybug across the now pre-dawn dusk. What I'd seen had overloaded my ability to comprehend, but as we put more distance between us and the Agreste mansion, I began to find the recesses of my brain making faint leaps of logic. To confirm what my subconscious was trying to tell me, I dropped to my cat crouch on the next roof and slid my baton open to phone mode.

The phone was still stubbornly telling me it was midafternoon. The sun peeking over the horizon said something entirely different.

Ladybug had made it to the next rooftop before realizing I wasn't with her and had circled back to drop down next to me. I twisted the phone to show her what I was seeing. "This isn't right, is it," I said, more an observation than a question.

"Well," she said, settling in next to me. "It is, I think. But not for here."

"Here?" I asked, pausing. "Or more particularly, _when_?"

She smiled. "You've already figured it out, haven't you," she said fondly.

"Maybe. Show me your phone."

Ladybug removed her yo-yo from her hip and snapped it into phone mode. It showed the correct time, and a date that was nearly a year into the future. I flicked my eyes back at my phone, then to hers.

I nodded. "How did it happen?" I asked simply, having made the rest of the connections.

"I'm not sure yet," Ladybug answered soberly. "Master Fu thinks it's a spell from the Grimoire, making Hawkmoth the most likely candidate. It seems to have sent my version of Chat Noir to another point in time but also erased any trace of his existence in _this _timeline."

"So," I said slowly, "neither Adrien, nor Chat Noir exist here." And who was Master Fu, anyway? I filed that away for later.

"No," she answered. "When I saw you on the fence, though, I assumed you – or rather, _my_ Chat Noir – had figured out a way to get back."

"But he didn't," I said, finding it hard to talk about myself in the third person.

"No," she confirmed. "But given what you've told me, I think he _swapped _places with you instead."

"Swapped?"

"Yes," she continued, placing a hand on my bicep in a very personal way. "Until you arrived, I had no idea _where _in time he'd been sent. You're the first clue in how we unravel all of this."

"Glad to be of service, madam," I said with zero Chat charm.

"Usually you say 'milady,'" she teased gently.

"I do?"

"Yes," she said as she stood up. "I like it better than 'bugaboo' to be honest."

I smiled. "I'll keep it in mind… milady."

She pressed that hand into my arm once more. "Don't worry, Chat," she said. "We _will_ figure this out. We always do." She turned back toward the rising sun. "But we have a more immediate problem."

I nodded. "What to do about me," I said. "I can't obviously go home. And I don't know anyone other than you in this timeline."

She turned back toward me. "How good is your English?"

"Excellent," I said in English, with a slight British accent. "Although not as solid as my Mandarin."

"Good," she continued, herself in nearly flawless English. "But make it more American. I have an idea about how to house you, but you're not going to like it," she continued, switching back to our native French.

"You say that a lot, don't you?"

"Maybe," she smiled again. "And it's not been lost on me you've not pressed me for how I know the identity of your alter-ego."

"I figured you'd get to that when the time is right."

Ladybug smiled again. "I don't know if it's safe to tell you all the details, given that you may well go back to your normal place in the timeline."

"It depends on what kind of time travel we are dealing with," I said, warming up to a subject I felt I knew a bit about. "If this is one where the past has been altered and needs to be corrected-"

"—everything will snap back to the way it was, and no one will know it ever happened," she finished for me. She must have seen my deflated expression, for she continued: "Actually, we had this discussion shortly after watching _Star Trek IV_ together."

I felt my jaw drop. "We… we watched it together?"

_I have to be dreaming. Or I've died and gone to the most perfect heaven ever._

Ladybug ran a playful finger along my shoulder. "We do a _lot_ of things together these days, kitty."

I couldn't help the sly smile that hit my face. "Do we? Care to enlighten me a bit?"

"No," she chuckled. "There are some things you will just need to find out normally."

"Can't blame a cat fur trying," I said, issuing perhaps the first pun in the last several hours.

She rolled her eyes. "_Any_way, suffice it to say we've long since revealed our identities to each other. Which is why you also know who I am."

I swallowed, guessing what was coming.

"Tikki – spots off."

A massive red flash washed over her body, rolling over Ladybug in a cascading wave of light. Once the glow faded, Marinette was standing before me. I wasn't sure my jaw could drop any lower.

"Surprise," she said sweetly. "Now, here's how we are going to sneak you into school today…"

* * *

_**Chat Noir (in the past)**_

There was going to be absolutely no way anyone would be writing my biography. Ever.

Being forced to live through the early akumas we had fought was proving to be highly annoying, all the more so since I _did _already know how we dispensed with them and could easily have shortened these escapades. But no… the great Chat Noir had decided to play by the rules for once.

Which is why I once again found myself clinging to the edge of what little floor the Evilstrator had not erased from Chloe Bourgeois's bedroom, feeling my claws slowly losing their battle against the massively weighted ball and chain around my ankle. Evilstrator had accounted for my super strength and created a dastardly device that left me unable to pull myself to safety.

Except I'd known it was coming. Just like I knew that despite my ring chirping down to its last pad, Ladybug would use that tiny Lucky Charm rubber ball to take out all of the lights in the space (which she did), release the akuma from the stylus (which she did) and break the spell just in time for me to leap back to safety (which I did).

Again, not one of my finer moments in Chat Noir history. I choked back saying as much, though, as I held out my fist for our traditional pump.

"Pound it!" we said in unison.

"I've got to slink out, milday," I whispered to her as we wrapped up. "See you back at school."

Ladybug nodded and I flipped out to the balcony and over the railing, barely making it to a side alley before losing my transformation completely. Plagg floated up beside me as I tossed him his post-fight cheese. "I hate this," I said. "I feel like we're not getting anywhere."

He munched. "Patience, Adrien," he said between mouthfuls. "I think we'll know when we're seeing a change that we need to pay attention to. Don't lose sight of that."

I leaned against the brick of the building, arms folded and foot planted against the wall, unconsciously mirroring what I normally did as Chat. "It still sucks," I said.

"Yes," he agreed.

"You are not helping matters here, Plagg."

"What do you want from me? I'm just a simple kwami…"

That made me smile. "All right already." I held out my ring. "Back to school, please?"

He rolled his eyes and tossed the final piece of cheese down. "All work and no play…"

"Plagg – claws out!"

I rose back into the sky after re-transforming and leapt across the skyline of Paris on my way back to school. We were supposed to be spending the afternoon working on our particle physics presentations, which meant our alter-egos were likely not missed while out fighting Evilstrator. I landed on the roof, rolled to the edge and hooked a claw in the rain gutter to slide through the open window of the Men's locker room.

I landed in a cat crouch, and immediately felt something was off. My ears pivoted to the top of the lockers, and I followed them with my eyes. They were covered in Pigeons, ten deep. I tried to stifle a sneeze and slowly started to back away toward the window.

"Sorry," I said pleasantly, as I kept a hand out to feel for the wall/window. "I am fresh out of breadcrumbs today. Can I run out and get some for you?"

There was a ripple of movement across the birds. I somersaulted out the window and narrowly grabbed the downspout, redirecting myself back into the air. My ears pivoted back and warned me I was not nearly as far ahead of the flock as I needed to be.

I arced back toward a building, landed vertically and started to run across the wall on all fours, defying gravity in the process. I could hear the massive flock on my heels; I snared my right paw's claws in the building and hurled myself around the corner, shifting directions by ninety degrees. The birds shifted seamlessly with me.

_Of course they would_, I groaned.

I did the corner trick one more time and started looking for a place to duck into. My enhanced vision picked out a likely candidate, though I was not thrilled it had been the first thing to come up.

_I'm gonna need a long, hot shower after this._

I pushed myself off the side of the building and into a double-barrel roll, flipped into a tuck and landed next to a fairly full trash dumpster. Trying to ignore the smell, I leaned a shoulder into it and tipped it on its side, then slid around and into the mess, tipping it one more time from the inside. It crashed down on top of me in a loud _thump!_, cascading whatever other wonderful debris had been on the bottom all over me. Something particularly slimy hit me behind the left feline ear, and I tried to ignore it as it slid off slowly.

The birds nailed the outside of the dumpster, hard, sliding it up against the wall of the alley in which I'd found it. That worked in my favor by reducing one pivot point to re-flip it. I pushed my way through the icky trash and, using my night vision, found the interior hand holds on the side furthest from the wall, hooked my hands in and held on as hard as I could against their repeated blows to the exterior.

I kept the pressure on, preventing them from flipping the dumpster up and exposing me. Mentally I tried to re-run the order in which we'd tackled Hawkmoth's akumas, and was pretty sure Mister Pigeon was some time off still. I couldn't be sure, but these birds were behaving exactly as they had during that incident, save for it having started in the park first (and not my locker room).

"Well, Plagg," I said as I held against another burst from the birds, "I think this might qualify as a 'change' in the timeline."

* * *

_**Marinette (present day)**_

Per the plan, I left Chat on what would become his favorite rooftop in another timeline, snuck back to the Bakery and dropped my transformation. One look at the alarm clock and I knew I had little time to get everything into motion. I made my unused bed and ran through the shower, making it to the kitchen a fraction of a minute ahead of my mother.

She came in humming, and seeing me, stopped short. "Honey, you're up early...?" she said, glancing at the clock over the sink.

"Adrien is coming in today, remember?" I said sweetly. "With the time change for him, I wanted to make sure I was up when he arrived."

"Who?" she said, drawing a complete blank. As she should have.

"My exchange student?" I said, in my best how-could-you-have-forgotten voice. "From New York?"

"He's staying here? With us?" She looked totally lost now. "When did we talk about that?"

"_Mom_," I said, feigning exasperation. "Really?"

On cue, there was a knock at our residence door. I quickly left my mother behind and zipped to the entrance, pulling it open to reveal Adrien. "Bonjour!" he said with an impressively bad French accent. "Vous êtes Marinette? Je suis Adrien," he finished, holding out his hand.

"Yes," I replied, switching to English. He managed to look relieved. "Welcome, Adrien," I said. "You're a little early."

"I'm sorry, Prin-Marinette," he said in flawless English, all traces of the British accent removed. "The overnight flight got in earlier than expected, so I took a taxi to the address you provided." He actually managed to look embarrassed. "I thought it might be too early to call on you, so I've been walking the streets and taking in Paris for the last hour."

"What is he saying, dear?" my mother asked in French.

I knew full well she understood him but humored her. "His flight was early," I answered.

"Well, don't make him wait on the steps!" She hustled over to bring him into the space, eyes taking in his striking good looks for the first time. "Marinette says you are going to be with us for a while...?" she asked in French, glancing sidelong at me. I recognized the we'll-be-talking-about-this-later mother glare.

"Yes. I'm only here for a few weeks as part of the exchange program; fortunately, it lined up with some modelling work I'll be doing here in Paris." Adrien said, switching back to French seamlessly. It was too perfect, so I nudged him in the ribs. "If I understood your question," he said with a slight bad accent again. "I'm not quite fluent yet."

"You couldn't tell it by me," mother said. "But I presume the exchange program is designed to immerse you in the language and the culture of our city?"

"Yes, madame," he replied formally. "So I will try to stick to French as much as I can." He bowed, which I thought wasn't terribly American but _very_ Chat Noir, and took my mother's hand. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate your hospitality, especially on such short notice." He smiled that Adrien/Chat Noir smile that usually made me swoon; I could tell it was charming the Hell out of my mother and tried not to smirk.

_My God, _I thought_, is she actually blushing?_

"We're happy to do it," mother said, ignoring the fact that as little as five minutes ago she'd had no idea he was even coming.

I smiled back at Adrien. "Let me show you to your room, and then we've got to get over to school."

"Of course, mil—Marinette," he said quickly. I took him by the hand and up to the spare room, which was actually still full of partially completed projects I'd been working on. We took a few moments to clear space on the bed and then sat down.

"That went better than I expected," I said.

"How did you convince them?" Adrien asked, wide eyed.

"I didn't. I've kind of led mother to believe we'd already discussed it, and then you arrived before she could dispute it."

"Fait accompli," he said happily. "To think, I'm actually going to get to live with Ladybug for a few days..."

I smacked him. "Let's keep our focus, Chat, shall we?"

"As you know purrfectly well, that will be incredibly difficult," he said, smiling slyly. "I have a feeling even the 'me' in this timeline would have a tough time of it."

"Yeah, he would," I agreed.

We didn't get much time beyond that as a horrific crash issued from the street outside the bedroom window. Channeling our alter-egos, we were at the window in a split second to see a massive rose bush had pushed itself up and out of the street, with thorny stems reaching high into the sky. The city bus had narrowly missed hitting the bush but had collided with two or three other vehicles, leaving a snarled mess of traffic. On first glance, it looked like no one was hurt, but we'd have to get down there to verify.

"I take it we're still fighting akumas here, too," Adrien said without taking his eyes off the scene below.

"I'm afraid so," I confirmed.

He turned toward me. "This is pretty much how my first day at school started the last time," he said, smiling slightly.

"I remember."

He inclined his head toward the mess below, allowing his blonde hair to fall forward artfully as he did so. Adrien certainly knew how to use his physical assets. "Shall we, milady?"

"After you, kitty."

He smiled more widely. "Plagg - claws out!"

I followed suit. "Tikki - spots on!"

* * *

_**Chat Noir (in the past)**_

I really, really didn't like tiny, enclosed spaces.

Unfortunately, the pummeling the dumpster was taking from the birds had driven in the three sides of the container that hadn't been braced against the building. It was beginning to feel less like a dumpster, actually, and more like the sarcophagus Ladybug had stuffed me into during the incident with Riposte.

A very small, very compacted, very hot, very smelly sarcophagus.

Keeping the dumpster braced was taking both hands and both feet; that had made it impossible for me to reach my baton and call for backup. Alone again. I grimaced as I resisted another blow and tried to reposition myself to keep a little space between me and the now very sharp edges.

_Of all the times to not have voice activated dialing..._

There was another burst of activity from opposite sides and I found myself wedged against the wall in a nearly Chat-shaped cocoon. On the plus side, it meant I didn't have to keep moving in order to avoid their attack. But it also meant that I couldn't really move in any particular direction, either.

Except, maybe, down.

I quirked an eyebrow. I was in Paris, after all. There had to be _something_ below me.

My ring hand was pinned below my waist where I'd been holding the dumpster, but kneeling slightly I could brush my fingertips across the asphalt. It would have to be enough. I slid up slightly to give myself as much room as I could.

"Cataclysm!" I cried, and immediately moved as low as I could, grazing my fingertips along the pavement. I tensed as I watched the ground turn to dust, and then felt it give way beneath me.

I dropped quickly and landed in a cat crouch in what appeared to be a large connecting pipe to the Paris sewer. The smell hadn't improved much, either. Above me, I heard the birds making one final assault on the dumpster, and saw the muted rays of sunshine through my hole as they managed to move it slightly.

_Time to go!_

I started galloping down the passageway, pulling out my baton as I ran. I was hoping the flock wouldn't get the bright idea to follow me into the underbelly of the city, but was taking no chances. I flipped the phone open and tried to speed dial Ladybug, remembering only then that it had no way of connecting with the Ladybug in _this_ timeline.

_So much for backup._

I swapped to data mode and frantically started to flip through the city charts as I ran, trying to find the sewer map and some semblance of an exit. The signal was sufficiently bad that it took me a few moments to find anything, and at length I had to pause in an alcove to review what I'd found. Once I overlaid my GPS coordinates, I discovered I'd managed to circle back to the school and was nearly beneath it (convenient!). My feline ears didn't detect the signs of pursuit, so I presumed I'd lost my attackers; my ring was down to the final pad, so it was now or never.

The next bend in the tunnel had the ladder I was looking for, and I leapt up to a manhole cover that was tightly wedged closed. It took extra effort to get the thing open, and I burst out into the middle of the very, _very_ busy street in front of the school.

And directly in front of an express bus, hurtling toward me.

I said something very bad under my breath and snapped the baton into pole vault mode, narrowly missing the bus, and arced over toward the rooftop of the school. I was in the downward part of my arc when my final emergency chirp sounded, barely behind the façade of the school.

"NoNoNoNoNoNoNo...!" I heard myself yelling as my transformation dissolved, and I found myself barreling toward the roof tiles as Completely Ordinary Adrien.

I landed on my ill-equipped but fashionable tennis sneakers, having intended to do a standard tuck and roll; they had zero traction, though, so I skidded into a massive faceplant, ripping various portions of my shirt and jeans in the process. I'd naturally tried to slow my slide with claws that I no longer had, and wound up with a nice case of road rash on both hands. At length, I found myself pressed against one of the clerestory windows that looked down into the courtyard in a most ungallant pose.

"Ouch," was all I could think to say.

Plagg had managed to disentangle himself from what was left of my button down, and was holding a rather bedraggled piece of Camembert that had been thrown clear of the crash. "What a horrific end," he said to the cheese as he popped it into his mouth.

"That's all you have to say?" I asked as I continued to lie there, sulking slightly. "What about my performance?"

"I'm not a drama critic," he said, as he scoured the rooftop for other survivors from his stash.

I hauled myself up, and ran a finger over my chin. I'd grazed that, too. Fortunately, I had a few days before the next scheduled photo shoot, so with any luck, my quick healing abilities would have me as good as new by then. "Have you had enough?" I asked Plagg. "It would be faster to get off this roof if I'm transformed. I still need to find Ladybug so we can take care of Mister Pigeon." I inadvertently emphasized the situation by sneezing, again.

"Barely," he said, "but I think I can get you there."

"Plagg - claws out!"

My Chat Noir costume returned once again, although I could _definitely _feel where it was chafing against the raw skin I'd injured in my crash landing. Gingerly I made my way to the edge of the building and repeated my duck-and-slide through the window of the men's locker room.

And found myself staring at a very shocked Nino.

_Seriously? Not catching any breaks today, are we?_


	5. Threads Entangled

_**Chat Noir (in the past)**_

"Chat Noir!" Nino said anxiously. "Is something wrong?"

Now that I thought about it, that seemed to be _everyone's _reaction to my appearance. Not without cause, of course; it wasn't like Ladybug and I appeared just to chitchat socially with folks. But today it was kind of annoying, which I tried to keep out of my voice.

"Uh, no," I said, also trying to remember if Chat Noir had interacted with Nino directly in this timeline. "I, uh, was just popping in to see if I could, uh…"

Yep, master of language, Chat Noir was.

"…you haven't seen Ladybug, have you?" I asked, weakly.

"No," he replied slowly.

"Okay," I said. "Great conversation!" I started back out the window, pausing to turn back to Nino again. "Uh, can we keep this between us? I'm normally only out after dark," I added, with a wink.

He nodded, mouth agape.

I leapt back out the window and clung to the side of the school, listening closely this time to ensure the locker room was truly empty before sliding back in for the third time. This seemed to finally be the charm and I quickly transformed back to Adrien before I could be interrupted.

* * *

_**Adrien (in the past)**_

My clothes were still in tatters, so I dug through the gym bag in my locker and hesitantly decided to change into my PE attire. It would attract more attention than I wanted, owing to the fact that I normally dressed like one of Father's ad campaigns, but I really needed to cover the worst of my injuries (as superficial as the might be). I slung my bookbag over my shoulder and kept my hands buried in the hoodie's pockets, temporarily hiding my skinned palms, and set out to find Marinette.

It was late enough in the open afternoon schedule that most students had drifted off to their post-school activities; I managed to get to the library unheralded and found Marinette busily working on what I assumed was the particle physics project we'd started earlier. She looked up and worry immediately creased her brow.

I slid into the seat across from her. "I take it I look worse than I feel," I said.

"Yes," she agreed, eyes wide. "What happened?"

"Mister Pigeon happened," I said, sketching in my misadventure after leaving her at Chloe's bedroom. I finished by trying to downplay my crash landing, but her smile told me she saw through that little fib easily.

"It'll heal," I said defensively, "but what concerns me more is that we're not supposed to see Mister Pigeon this early. Something has changed."

Marinette tapped her stylus against her chin. "Maybe," she said thoughtfully. "Or maybe it's happening as it should but just out of order a bit." She looked at me again. "Tell me how you remember Mister Pigeon starting."

I sat back. "Do you think I should?" I asked. "That would give you some foresight into how events are supposed to take place."

"I think that ship has sailed already," she said pensively. "Tell me."

"Well, I'm pretty sure you were working on a hat for a design contest my Father was running. You wind up running down to the plaza to retrieve a feather and discover pigeons have taken over Paris." I narrowed my eyes, thinking. "I think I saw a news flash about it, transformed, at met you on a rooftop on your way to the park as Ladybug."

"A hat like this?" she asked, turning her tablet toward me. There, on the screen, was the very hat Marinette was going to enter – and later win with – in Father's competition.

"Yes," I said, frowning. "But why are you designing it now?"

"I was taking a break from the physics project and saw the competition ad from your Father's company on the web. I've been doodling ever since."

I frowned deeper. "I've already changed the timeline, haven't I?" I slumped. "Just by being here, and knowing what I know." I looked at her, worried. "What if I'm the reason in the first place?"

She reached across the table to hold my scratched hand. "I don't think that's it, Chat," she said. I'd noticed it was easier for her to think of me as my alter ego, though I worried that she might say it in mixed company. "Look, I also did some research-"

She flipped to another app on her tablet, bringing up a series of articles. I looked at it upside down. "Einstein?" I said, eyebrows raising. "Rosen? Asimov? This is pretty advanced stuff."

"Says the guy doing particle physics with me in middle school," she parried.

"Touché." I flipped the tablet around. "What's this one?" I asked, pointing to what appeared to be a fiction novel in her queue.

She turned the tablet back to see what I'd pointed at and immediately flushed crimson. "Oh, hah hah, that..."

I yanked the tablet away from her before she'd had a chance to delete the novel. "_The Wounded Sky_ \- that's one of my favorite classic _Star Trek _novels." I looked back at her. "Oddly appropriate, too, since it deals with time – or the lack thereof."

Marinette was still flushed. "Ayla told me she'd seen you reading it on your tablet, so I, uh, just wanted to see, uh..."

I smiled my disarming Adrien smile, which sent her eyes even wider. "It's okay," I said. "I'm flattered you'd thought enough of me to get to know my foibles."

That didn't seem to help her fluster as she pulled the tablet back and stuffed it into her satchel. "C'mon," she said, changing the subject entirely, "let's see if we can't track down Mister Pigeon. I'll explain what I'm thinking on the way."

* * *

_**Chat Noir (in the present)**_

I followed Ladybug's lead and climbed out the window of the bedroom I'd be using, temporarily putting that happy circumstance toward the back of my brain. Carefully, I worked my way down the side of the Bakery and landed on the sidewalk next to Ladybug in my customary ready-to-pounce crouch. Aside from the initial noise of the crash, the street had remained relatively quiet. I came up to a normal stance and started to work the scene with Ladybug.

It was early enough that the bus had only a few passengers, and all appeared to be safe and sound, though the bus driver was a bit rattled. Whether by the sudden appearance of the rose bush, or the fact that Ladybug seemed to have a new partner, I wasn't entirely sure.

One car driver had a minor bruise, but other than that, we'd been pretty lucky. First responders had arrived by that point, so we retreated to the periphery to regroup. "I don't get it," I said. "One rose bush a problem does not make." I waved at it with a claw. "It's a big pain, to be sure, but nothing a chainsaw can't handle."

Ladybug nodded. "This has to be the opening gambit," she murmured. "Can you see anything out of the ordinary, Chat?"

I'd continued to scan with my better feline vision. "Nothing, LB. No movement, no anything." I sniffed. "I'm not scenting anything, either." I sniffed again. "Well, maybe that's not entirely accurate," I said, picking up a strangely strong floral smell. Close to what you would get when you are in a greenhouse full of blooming orchids. Sickly sweet, almost.

I pointed down the street. "That way."

I started to lope down the street, with Ladybug close behind. I followed the smell as it grew stronger, and rounded a corner to see a second bush, this time something like an azalea. I slowed to a stop a few meters away from the second Floral Henge. "One is odd," I started.

"Two is a pattern," Ladybug finished. She pointed ahead, in the same direction that the smell was drawing me. My feline vision clearly saw a third plant of some kind. "Markers?"

"Guideposts," I said, shaking my head. "For a particular duo to follow." I turned toward her. "I'm not pawsitive I would follow the path as it's been laid out."

Ladybug looked at me appreciatively. "You're learning, Chat," she said, smiling.

I felt like I'd passed a test of some kind and filed that away for later. "Rooftop surveillance?" I offered.

"Sounds good to me."

I wrapped an arm around Ladybug and tried to ignore her strange scent. It was her, of course, but subtly different. I hadn't noticed it initially, but the longer I was with her, the more it was apparent that this Ladybug wasn't _my _Ladybug.

But I still found myself totally smitten with her.

_How is that gonna work out for you, Adrien?_

I smiled as I lifted her up with my baton to a nearby roof, warmly lit by the slanting rays of early morning sun.

_Well, _I answered myself_, better than I thought, if I've managed to snag her in the future._

We landed and I shortened the baton, and together we scanned the path that had been laid out for us; carefully, we started to follow it from the Paris skyline. There was still no sign of who – or what – had arranged the floral monuments, which were seriously messing with the rush hour traffic in Paris. Soon, it became apparent that the intent was us get us into the Stade de France. I'd been there with my Ladybug when we'd tried to take out Stoneheart the first time, though I suspected from this Ladybug's frown, she had been there more recently.

"Why do they always pick the stadium?" she asked as we perched on the nearest rooftop that overlooked the massive facility.

"Symbolism," I said simply. "And everyone _loves _an audience."

* * *

_**Chat Noir (in the past)**_

I reversed my prior process, re-transforming to Chat Noir in the men's locker room and sliding back out the window to join Ladybug on the roof of the school. Together we leapt off toward the park, Ladybug having decided it might be wiser to start with when our interaction (as Chat and Ladybug) took place with Mister Pigeon.

It wasn't far, so Ladybug didn't waste any time telling me the theory she'd come up with. "I think you did actually swap places with the Chat from this timeline," she started. "One of the fundamental principles behind the Law of Conservation of Mass maintains that systems remain constant. For example, matter can't be created or destroyed, but it can be rearranged."

"I'm with you so far," I said. "And that makes sense to me, but how do we account for the possible magic angle?" I asked as we hurtled another rooftop and started to run, side-by-side.

"Magic abides by similar laws," she said, as we leapt over an alleyway together. "It really is only a particular kind of science. In this case, I think it added energy to a closed system –"

"As in whatever pushed me to here?"

"Right," she said, "but in order to make 'space' for you here, it moved the other Chat 'there.'"

I narrowed my eyes as I used a claw to skid around a chimney and launched over yet another alleyway. "I've been making the assumption that the 'push' came from my time," I said pensively. "But it is possible that it happened here, in the past?" I looked at her. "Is that the trigger we're looking for?"

"I think your baton holds a possible answer to that."

"How?" I asked. This conversation sounded hauntingly familiar to one I had with my Ladybug about the Entropic Transformation, and I filed that away to bring up later.

"It's anchoring you to your time," she observed, "much as – and I am assuming a lot here – the baton for my Chat will do for him and _this_time. That tells me the spell that caused this had to have been cast in the _future_against an event in the _past_."

"Now you've lost me," I said. "And I am getting an 'A' in Physics this term."

"I'm saying, yes, the trigger is here in the past. But it was called by an event in the future." She paused as we landed on the final rooftop overlooking both the park and the Bakery next door. "Somehow, we need to coordinate with Ladybug and go over all of the events that happen between now and when you disappear from the timeline in the future. I think one of those events – an akuma attack or something as simple as a head cold – might be the trigger."

I pulled my baton out. It had always looked deceptively simple, but even a year into using it, I still didn't know all of the hidden functions. Tikki had recently shown me that I had a storage area hiding in the bottom. I could believe it would bail me out of this situation, too – it had yet to let me down.

I turned back to Ladybug. "You're explicitly asking that I reveal everything I know from the future, then."

"Yes," she said. "It's the only way." She waved at the park. "I think the timeline on our end is trying to readjust as well, which is why you perceive this akuma situation as taking place 'earlier' than it did originally." She turned back to me. "And if you _are _right, and we correct the timeline, none of what you tell me will matter – time will snap back into it's original, normal flow."

"There are a ton of assumptions in there, milady," I said cautiously. "But it sounds like a plan."

"Good." Ladybug reached in for a hug. "Now, how does this start?"

* * *

_**Hawkmoth (in the present)**_

He had passed up on several possible victims in the immediate period after finding Adrien had been wiped away from Paris. There hadn't been a point, really, to continuing his domination of the city, not with both is wife and his son now lost to time itself. He'd been surprised that even Nathalie's brief exposure to the Peacock Miraculous had protected her from the timeline changes, though, and she had quietly grieved alongside him – an emotional response he'd not expected.

Another surprise had occurred as he'd been despondently flipping through the news channels. There had been, as always, plenty of coverage of Ladybug _this_and Ladybug _that_, but he'd started to realize he wasn't seeing anything of her partner, Chat Noir. Further internet searches turned up no trace of the black-clad superhero.

Almost as if he, too, had never existed.

It was too much of a coincidence that both Adrien _and _Chat Noir would disappear. He had long harbored the suspicion that Adrien knew more about Chat Noir and Ladybug than he'd let on, but now it seemed apparent that Adrien had been Chat Noir all along.

His arch nemesis had been living under his roof. The discovery had doubled his pain.

At length, though, he'd come across a disgruntled groundskeeper who had been working long hours for low pay, and had been pushed just a little too far. It was too much of a tantalizing distraction from his pain to pass up, so he launched one of his little purple helpers toward what would become Mister Green Jeans.

He'd given the usual instructions, of course, shortening them to just the blasted earrings from Ladybug, but in truth, he didn't need them anymore. This was now just a game to play, a way to get back at the world that had now removed everything that he had loved and cared for. Hawkmoth watched Green Jeans set the trap half-heartedly, only partially paying attention.

That changed abruptly when Ladybug and Chat Noir dropped down into the grassy infield of Stade de France.

Ladybug… and… _Chat Noir._

_How is that possible?_he thought. _Unless I was wrong. I must know who is under that mask._

Then another thought superseded the first.

_And that means both Miraculouses are still here, in Paris. Maybe I can fix this..._

"Green Jeans," Hawkmoth thundered. "I have a tiny change to our plan…"

* * *

_**Ladybug (in the present)**_

Chat Noir dropped into his ready-to-pounce stance and I stood next to him, wielding the yo-yo and ready for anything. The wide, grassy field had recently been mowed, and I could hear Chat sniffing, and then stifling, a sneeze.

"I thought you were allergic to feathers?" I asked.

"I am," he said, nasally. "But I'm also, like, two inches from Hay Fever Heaven."

"Sorry, kitty," I apologized as I continued to scan the stadium. There was nothing, but that didn't mean anything; several times now, we'd arrived at the stadium to face an akuma only to have it drop in on us unexpectedly. "Anything?"

"Nothing, milady." He sneezed. "And it's bugging me." He smiled. "No offense, of course."

"None taken."

As the silence stretched on, I became increasingly uncomfortable. It was standard procedure for one of Hawkmoth's villains to make a cinematic appearance when we arrived in what was usually their well-planned trap. The lack of pomp and circumstance was rattling me. "I really, really don't like this."

"Maybe we guessed wrong," Chat said. I could tell he was still completely tensed, ready to spring into motion.

"No," I said confidently. "I think something has changed."

He turned his face up, wild blonde hair framing the concerned expression even his mask couldn't hide completely. He easily managed to keep his ready-to-pounce stance. "Changed? Like how?"

"He was expecting just Ladybug," I said. "Somehow, Hawkmoth knew Chat Noir wasn't in Paris."

"And now he has to recalibrate?" Chat asked. "Hang on, how would he know? I thought this Master Fu fellow told you Miraculous holders were immune from changes in the timeline."

"Exactly." I stepped closer to Chat. "Hawkmoth knows who you are. It's the only explanation that makes sense."

Chat said something terrible under his breath and tensed even tighter. "There has to be a way to make this work to our advantage," he said. "But it might complicate matters if 'Adrien' starts roaming the streets of Paris in this timeline."

"I agree," I said, circling to put my back to Chat. "We might have to rethink the school angle and keep you out of sight."

"Ladybug - your parents have already seen me," he said, concern underlying his voice. "That puts them into potential danger."

"Maybe," I replied, "but we'll cross that bridge after this one."

* * *

**AN: Apologies at the delay in posting - I'd been on pace to have a new chapter each evening, but real life has intruded into my writing/editing time - not to mention I've become engrossed myself in one or two other stories from some of my favorite authors (looking at you, Icarus). That and several eagle-eyed readers noted a tiny mistake in my episode references which necessitated rewatching said episodes and making several corrections to my timeline for upcoming chapters. (I don't typically update published chapters, but I did make a minor adjustment in Chapter 4 in case you want to re-read.)**

**And before you ask, yes, _The Wounded Sky_ (Diane Duane, 1983) does exist. Adrien has very good taste in Science Fiction. :-) **

**Don't worry, though. This storyline has quite a bit left in it; I truly appreciate you hanging around! -ep**


	6. It's Complicated

_**Chat Noir (in the past)**_

As silly as it had been the first time, I willingly donned the Gendarmerie ballcap a second time and started strutting up and down the park humming the French National Anthem. I may have even thrown in a bit more moon dancing than my original set, which earned a deeper scowl from Ladybug.

A violent set of sneezes warned me a fraction of a second before the flock of pigeons scooped me up and carried me across Paris toward the Grand Hotel. So far, aside from the impromptu attack earlier, this was unspooling almost exactly as I remembered it.

My avian friends dropped me atop the covered pool on the roof of the Hotel. Ladybug had been following and dropped in beside me once the birds cleared the space. "Are you sure I can't short circuit this?" I asked. "You just told me the timeline-"

"We need to play this out," she said. "You've got tell me what differences you see. That might help us further determine the trigger episode."

I sighed. And sneezed, again. "I really hate what's about to happen," I growled.

"Get over it, Chat," she said, but fondly.

Mister Pigeon ultimately arrived, again trapping us in a massive birdcage and threatening to have his minions, uh, unload on us in a rather violent fashion. I again used my Cataclysm to reduce the bars to nothingness, and we escaped into the hotel after narrowly avoiding a dive bomb attack. Then came the embarrassing part I'd hoped to avoid.

We found the Mayor in the lobby, and with my ring chirping its final warning beeps, managed to again convince him I needed to use the facilities rather urgently by hopping from foot to foot like a five-year-old. I again laughed at the bad joke regarding litter boxes and wound up back in the Royal Suite with a platter of Camembert for Plagg a fraction of a second before losing my transformation.

"This I have been looking forward to," Plagg said as he tore into the platter.

"I'm glad someone is happy we're repeating this," I smiled. "Now, hurry?"

Impressively, he downed the entire wheel of cheese in less time than I thought possible, and a few moments later I was holding the elevator for Ladybug. "Ready when you are, LB," I said.

"Purrfect timing, Chat," she said as she stepped in.

I raised an eyebrow. "Really? Horning in on my territory now, are we?"

"You love it and you know it," she laughed as the doors closed.

I had to admit, it _was _kind of cute. "'kay," I said, deciding to tweak her a bit. "But don't get upset if I start to use 'bug out' now."

"Hey!"

She didn't have time to respond – the elevator opened on the roof and we were off, following the flocks that were carrying away the park rangers from the city toward our final confrontation with Mister Pigeon.

_Except..._

"They're going in the wrong direction," I said. "We should be heading for the Grand Palais."

We pulled up on a rooftop. "That is _not _the Grand Palais," Ladybug said, indicating the wide plaza and the Eiffel Tower just beyond. "A change, then," she said, looking sidelong at me.

"Yes," I said, wondering how far off script we were about to go. "I can see the officers are being held in a cage at the center," I said as I squinted toward the tower. "There are birds on every level of the tower, all facing inward toward the cage."

I turned back to Ladybug. "The setup is actually similar to what we should have seen," I said, scratching my chin with a claw. "Mister Pigeon is likely up in the catbird's seat just above, waiting fur us to make our clawsome appearance."

"So the direct approach isn't warranted," she said, rolling her eyes at me.

"No. But the tower's architecture will make it more difficult for us to sneak around him undetected." I frowned. "Another unwelcome change."

"Maybe not," Ladybug responded, thinking. "I think we should come in from above."

I nodded, trying not to indicate that had been our original plan. "After you, milady."

She spun up her yo-yo and I helicoptered next to her, crossing the plaza while rising to the mid-level section of the tower. I landed against the outer metal girders, and pressed myself close in an attempt to avoid being seen by Mister Pigeon, who I assumed was below us and on a similar gangway to where he'd been hiding in my timeline at the Grand Palais. Ladybug had hooked her yo-yo around the girder across from me and was using it to work her way up to the crossbeams just above us.

I followed suit, leaping from handhold to handhold, arriving on the crossbeam just as she pulled herself onto it. I hooked my arm through an open space of the girder and hung over the side to get a look at what was below. "Yep," I said, using my feline-enhanced sight. "There he is. Just off to the crossbeam on the right as we are looking at it."

Ladybug tossed her yo-yo out and wrapped it around the intersection of the support beams, and turned to me. "All right. Let's do this _Mission: Impossible _style," she said, beckoning me to come over. "I need you to grab the akumatized object."

I paused. "How, exactly, are you planning to lower me down?"

"I'm not," she said with a wicked gleam to her eye. "You're going to jump; I'll be right behind you and will grab you."

"Uh," I said, reappraising just how far down Mister Pigeon was, and how much further down the actual ground happened to be. "You know I trust you, right?" I gulped.

"I do," she said. "Now, on the count of three..."

I pulled my baton out, thinking it was going to play a critical role in preventing me from becoming a squashed kitty. "One... two..." I said.

"Three!" she said, shoving me over the side.

_Not funny, _I thought as the ground started to rush up to meet me.

* * *

_**Ladybug (in the present)**_

More than ten minutes had gone by since our arrival at the stadium and I found myself questioning our conclusions about where this showdown was supposed to take place. I'd turned around to say as much to Chat, but his pained expression stopped me. "What is it?"

With little fanfare, flowers started to push their way up through the stadium's grassy surface. In the space of a few heartbeats, we found ourselves surrounded by a field of small flowering plants of four or five red petals huddled around an almost cartoonish black dot in the center.

Unlike any flower I had ever seen before, though, these seemed to be emitting some sort of light mist.

"Can't you smell that?" he said, eyes wrinkling. "It's... it's..."

He never finished his sentence. He fell forward, flat on his masked face, ears and limbs akimbo and completely unconscious.

I pressed a gloved hand to my nose, not that it would do anything, and knelt beside him. He still had a pulse and was breathing, just knocked out. As I tried to pick him up, my less sensitive sense of smell started to detect a sickly sweet odor that was vaguely familiar.

_Poppies_. _How very_ Wizard of Oz.

I tried to move a bit faster but the smell was overwhelming and my head started to swim. Just when I thought I had gotten an arm around Chat, I found that I was actually flat on my back, with his arm around me. I blinked, trying to clear my vision, and lost at the effort.

I have no idea how long I was out, but when my sense of self finally came back, I was still flat on my back. I sat up and immediately wished I hadn't done it quite as quickly as I had, choking back a wave of nausea. Chat was with me, and had his chin on my ankle; a trail of drool had dribbled out of his slackened jaw. The room was dimly lit, but enough so that I knew we were no longer at the stadium.

_Why move us?_ I thought. _You could have just taken the jewels and been done with it._

Gently, I prodded Chat, who slowly blinked his wide green eyes open. They wore a dazed expression, and his dilated pupils told me the drug had affected him more forcefully due to his heightened senses. "Muh-ladee," he said groggily. "Wesh... whershe..."

"I don't know, Chat," I said, swinging around to hold his head against my chest.

I heard him groan with the movement. "Whoa... some rweallie bwad cashnip..." he mumbled, slowly placing a paw to his temple. "Ow..."

Gently, I smoothed out his rumpled mane, at least, as much as was possible. "It's a good sign you are still punning," I said with a trace of humor.

"Yeesh, muh-ladee," he said, stifling a groan of agony.

I looked around the space. It was industrial-like, and rectangular, and very small – similar to the shipping container Dark Owl had locked us into. I'd have to more closely examine the space, but I didn't immediately see any doors or windows, but in the dimness, it was something Chat would have been more likely to have seen than I. Squinting to the ceiling, I could make out the light source – it was a single light panel, possibly LED based, and had been turned way down.

I did a mental inventory. We were still alive, so that was positive. The Miraculous jewels were still in our possession, meaning there was more to come on that front. Chat appeared to be out of it, which might complicate any planning for our escape, but (and I checked) his ring was still fully charged, so we had his super power available still. One flaw with my earrings was my inability to see how many dots I had left, often leading me to have Chat check; that was problematic, given his state, so I reached for my yo-yo to reverse the camera... and found it was missing.

_Not good._

I shifted Chat as much as I could and confirmed his baton was likewise MIA.

He settled back against me as I leaned against the wall we were closest to. I was pretty sure he was purring, and had started to knead my thigh with his hands. If we weren't locked in a crate together, I think my flame of embarrassment would have been visible from every point in Paris. I gingerly redirected him, though he snuggled further into my chest as a result.

"Off the rails," he murmured drowsily.

"No kidding," I said.

"Mister Pigeon swhouldn't be at the Tower," he continued, yawning like he'd been asleep for hours.

"He wasn't," I said, startled at the abrupt change in topic. "He was at the Grand Palais."

"I know," he continued, moving his paw back to my thigh, which I redirected, again. "I just told you that, silly bug."

_Wait a minute_, I thought. _Mister Pigeon attacked us well after Stormy Weather. There's no way _this _Chat would know about him._

"How do you know that?" I asked.

Chat cracked an eye at me. "Know what?" he asked, still groggy but more in the here-and-now. I knew that because both eyes flew open once he realized his head was on me. "Milady-!" he said hastily as he scooted away, immediately smashing his back into the wall behind us.

"Ow!" he grimaced, as he rubbed his side. "I'm sorry, Ladybug – I'm still a bit out of it," he said apologetically. I could see crimson on his cheeks and thought better than to tease him. "Where are we?"

"Not the stadium and sans yo-yo and baton," I said succinctly.

Chat immediately reached for the small of his back and nodded. "Great." Then he looked at his ring. "But we still have the jewels," he said. "Why take our devices but leave them?"

"_An excellent question_," a voice answered, unseen.

_Hawkmoth._

_"Thank you for joining me, Ladybug and Chat Noir. I'm sorry I can't be there in person to greet you."_

"I won't ask what you want, Hawkmoth," I said, "since we already know that. So why the theater? You could have removed our Miraculouses while we were incapacitated."

_"I have a few questions I would like to have answered first, and I need you in your transformed selves for this part; without your yo-yo, you won't have the distraction of a Lucky Charm." _There was a pause._ "And I need to build up a bit of goodwill."_

Chat's eyes had gone wide. "Fruitcake," he mouthed to me.

"All right," I agreed. "Since we don't really have a choice in the matter."

_"Where is Adrien Agreste?"_

That was not the question I expected out of the gate, but was also not entirely surprised. "Gone," I said simply. "No trace of him exists in Paris at the moment. Believe me, I've looked."

There was a long, and dare I say, emotionally charged pause. _"You remember him, then?"_

"Of course. As your own kwami has likely told you, we are immune to changes in the timeline."

_"And you, Chat Noir? You know who Adrien Agreste is, or was?"_

"Yes," Chat said, looking toward me. "We've crossed paths with him before, and given his visibility on behalf of his father's design business, it was immediately obvious when he, uh, disappeared."

The next pause was even longer. _"You knew him better than that, didn't you, Chat Noir?"_

Chat looked at me, and winked an-I've-got-this wink. "You're gonna need to be a bit more spurrsific, butterfly breath," he said snarkily.

_"Let me put it to you another way," _Hawkmoth said icily. _"Are you not, in fact, Adrien Agreste?"_

I thought I could detect a hint of desperation in Hawkmoth's voice. I looked to Chat, and made a subtle motion; I needn't have, for Chat was already on my wavelength.

"I could only wish to be Adrien," Chat said wistfully. "To have all those women throwing themselves at me..." he sighed in an exaggerated way for the unseen camera. "But no. I am just an ordinary, nondescript Parisian outside of the mask."

He looked at me. "And before you ask, no, I will not drop my transformation just to satisfy your curiosity. I fully expect we are going to get out of here; I refuse to do _anything _that might endanger our loved ones."

_"Then why should I believe you?" _

I was definitely hearing desperation now. Adrien was special to Hawkmoth in some way; it seemed to confirm what I'd been ruminating on earlier with Chat but with a new emotional edge to it.

"Because -" Chat started.

"Because, we'll help you find Adrien," I interrupted.

"Ladybug!" Chat hissed. "What are you _doing_?" his eyes were narrowed in anger. "This is _Hawkmoth _we're talking to!"

"Trust me, kitty," I whispered back.

Another pause. _"What do you propose?"_ came Hawkmoth's icy voice, now devoid of emotion.

I swallowed. "You have to let us work the problem," I said quickly, gripping Chat's hand to keep him from saying anything. "Give us a few days to finish gathering data and then we can regroup." I waited.

Chat jumped in, barely keeping his anger in check. "In other words, call off your goon and don't throw any other akumas at us so we can do our job," he said, tail twitching horribly.

_"I will grant you three days; Green Jeans will stand down for now. After that, I will take your Miraculouses and find him myself."_

"Agreed." I tried to ignore the look of fury coming from Chat.

The box around us dissolved into nothingness and we found ourselves still at the stadium. Hawkmoth had kept his part so far: the grass had been returned to normal, and I assumed the various floral arrangements out on the streets had likewise been removed. My yo-yo and Chat's baton were carefully placed to the side of where the crate had been; I retrieved them and handed Chat his baton, which he snapped out of my hand harshly.

He stalked over to the edge of the field and folded himself into a very unhappy cat crouch. I waited a moment and then joined him.

"Before you say anything," he said peremptorily, "I trust you implicitly. I am just struggling to understand _why _you would agree to work with Hawkmoth, when it's clear that he'll very likely double-cross us in the end." He looked up at me, cheeks inflamed. "I am more upset at myself for even questioning your judgement."

"Chat, I get it," I said, sitting down next to him. "It's not my first choice, but it seemed like the logical way to buy us time. Besides," she said, "I think we learned something valuable in the process."

I reached over to pull him back into a snuggle. He offered token resistance before putting his head against my shoulder. "Hawkmoth believes he knows who your alter-ego is. This might be our best chance yet to put some distance between Chat and Adrien."

Chat slowly nodded against me. "Makes sense."

I flipped open the yo-yo; one of us was going to be _very _late for school. I'd have to leave the Mister Pigeon question until later. "C'mon, kitty, let's see if we can't find a cat sitter for you today," I said as I stood to go.

"Seriously?" he said, still in a bit of foul humor. "I think I am purrfectly capable of seeing after myself."

I leaned over, turned his head toward me, and planted a smoking hot kiss on his lips, which, after a moment, he leaned into himself. As I pulled back, he looked at me again. "Well, since you put it that way..."


	7. Changes and Connections

_**Chat Noir (in the past)**_

I flattened out my profile and sped up my descent, watching Mister Pigeon approach rapidly. I knew from our prior interaction in my timeline that the akuma was inside his bird whistle, and I adjusted my trajectory to be just a half meter in front of him. For the moment, he was still at the edge of the girder, hopelessly looking for us to appear below him. Conveniently, he was leaning over the edge slightly, exposing more of his whistle in the process.

For a brief moment, as I was falling, I could have sworn I was smelling something sickly sweet in the air; it was so strong, in fact, it made me a bit woozy. It couldn't have been for more than a second or two, given how fast I was falling, but in that brief span I could have also sworn I was sitting in Ladybug's warm embrace. I shook my head to clear it and refocused on my target.

Counting it down, I reached forward and snagged the whistle as I went sailing past him, wind whipping in my face as I continued my rapid descent. I had a few moments before Mister Pigeon could react and send his hordes of avian friends after me; I rolled the whistle into my palm and gently closed my hand around it. The ground was racing up to meet me as I somersaulted and raised my baton above my falling form, then triggered the extension function.

It shot out to my left and snagged itself in one of the open areas of the girder, held firm, and elastically slowed my descent rather radically. I let the spring motion loop me back up and I landed cat-like on the crossbeam I'd snagged, retrieved the baton and waited for Ladybug to drop to my level. As she landed next to me, I carefully placed the bird whistle on the beam and smashed it to pieces with my baton.

The purple akuma fluttered up and directly into Ladybug's spinning yo-yo. She quickly ran through her de-evilizing routine and we shortly found ourselves helping Monsieur Ramier off the cross beam he was huddled on and carefully down to street level. Once he was on his way, and we'd ensured that all of the park officers had been accounted for, we made for the closest rooftop.

"That back half was nowhere close to how it went down originally," I said as we sat facing the tower.

"Now that we're through this version, walk me through how it happened originally," she said.

I spent the next few minutes recounting our exploits at the Grand Palais, filling in the odd details as I recalled them. "In the end, you had to use a Lucky Charm to get to Mister Pigeon," I said. "This version, today, was closer to what I think you had originally planned."

She nodded. "Was anything else different?"

I paused. Was it worth telling her about the smell? "Well," I said, "I smelled something odd on the way down, actually." I went on to describe the brief daydream I'd had before snagging the whistle.

That made her sit closer. "Describe that part again," she requested, eyes fixed on me.

I started to describe the smell and the sensations again when she stopped me. "Close your eyes, Chat, and take a moment to focus. Breath really deeply. Then, slowly, tell me _exactly_ what you see, smell, and even hear."

"All right." I did as she asked, closing my masked eyes and focusing inward. I took several deep breaths, and let my heartbeat slow into a gentle rhythm. Slowly, I found myself back on the tower.

_I'm falling from where you pushed me off the tower. Thanks for that, by the way._

_ (No editorial comments, Chat,_ I heard Ladybug say in my head._ Keep going.)_

_Streamlined body to speed up a bit. Starting to smell sickly-sweet smell. Way too sweet. Almost an assault on the senses. Wow! That is powerful. Making me feel a little sleepy, actually._

_Shake your head, Chat! Getting hard to focus. Something feels comfortable. I can smell her. It's Ladybug – my Ladybug, scent is different._

_(Different, how? Describe.)_

_Same but more. _

_(Okay. Continue.)_

_Am I still falling? Feels like I'm sleeping. Ladybug is holding me. How can that be right? She's above me. Can't turn to see, almost to Mister Pigeon. This is off the rails, we are both saying. _

_(We? We who?)_

_Mister Pigeon swhouldn't_ _be here. Hard to think. Must sleep._

_Snap out of it! Get a grip!_

My eyes snapped open, and I found myself being held by Ladybug. I was shuddering. "Hawkmoth knows who I am," I said with a sudden certainty. "At least, the Chat Noir in the future thinks that." I looked at Ladybug. "I can't explain it, but I think I had a momentary connection to your Chat. He and my Ladybug appear to have been in some trouble."

"Nothing unusual there," she said, trying to lighten the moment. "But this is important." She tapped a finger on my shoulder. "Two pieces of information here, I guess. The earlier than expected arrival of Mister Pigeon confirms our end of the timeline is flexing, maybe in an attempt to correct itself. It may also have presented an opportunity for us to connect to your future – whatever physics that allow such quantum filaments to connect, perhaps. I'd assumed we'd only be able to make a connection with your baton, but I wonder now if you, yourself, are connected to the future as well."

"Huh," I said thoughtfully. I pulled out my baton and opened the GPS. Ladybug showed up at the stadium, which, oddly, is what I had expected. Somewhere in that memory was the distinct smell of freshly mowed grass. I flipped to the phone option and tried to dial Ladybug. It didn't connect.

"Try texting," Ladybug suggested. "Sometimes SMS messages can get through where voice cannot."

"I'll try," I said, flipping the baton sideways so I could get the keyboard to come up on the screen. "But I have a really hard time typing with these claws."

**_Chat:_**_ Hey. Still caught back here, voice not working. Just had a hallucination you were at the stadium and in trouble._

I waited, and watched in amazement as the triple dots appeared, indicating that she was typing.

**_LB: _**_OMG I didn't think to try this._

**_Chat:_**_ Don't worry, you did. Just a year earlier._

**_LB: _**_Ah. And yes, bad situation at stadium. Hawkmoth. How did U know?_

**_Chat: _**_Not sure, but past you thinks I'm connected to past me, who is with you. I saw it through him._

**_LB:_**_ Interesting. That fits a theory I have._

**_Chat:_**_ Probably the same theory you have here. _

**_LB: _**_Do I use the words "quantum filaments?"_

**_Chat: _**_Spot on as usual_

I paused.

**_Chat: _**_What did Hawkmoth throw at you?_

**_LB: _**_Seems to think Adrien is Chat Noir. Wants us to find Adrien for him. Adrien is missing in this timeline now. HM surprised to see Chat Noir. Somehow has special connection/understanding about Chat Noir._

**_Chat: _**_He knows who I am fur real?_

**_LB: _**_No idea. Suspect it's an intuitive guess. But Chat appearing here definitely threw him._

**_Chat:_**_ Wait, you are WORKING with Hawkmoth? WTH?_

**_LB:_**_ Local Chat said same thing. Best option to buy time. Trust me._

**_Chat:_**_ Always, milady. B Careful._

**_LB_**_: Isn't that my line to you? :-p_

**_Chat: _**_Hah hah. Past is not unfolding normally. Just fought Mister Pigeon directly after Evilstrator. U R worried this is a sign timeline is trying to self-correct._

**_LB:_**_ I'm right to worry. Go talk to Master Fu. I have already. Seeing him again later tonight._

**_Chat: _**_Time on my baton says 0815. You are late fur school?_

**_LB: _**_Very. But baton clock correct. Local Chat sees your time._

**_Chat:_**_ Good to know. Will call back at 2230?_

**_LB: _**_It's a date! xx uu_

**_Chat: _**_Missing you. Though I am still seeing you. ;-)_

**_LB: _**_Ditto. Take care of me there._

**_Chat: _**_Always, milady. xx uu_

I turned my baton over to Ladybug and let her read the thread. She nodded in agreement with her future self. "Of course," she said, "I have no idea who this Master Fu is."

"Don't worry," I said, smiling. "Fortunately, I finally know the way."

* * *

_**Ladybug (in the present)**_

I was staring at the messages on the text function.

**_Chat:_**_ Missing you. Though I am still seeing you. ;-)_

Rationally, I had known Chat was alive, but seeing the evidence on my yo-yo phone filled me with a hope that I hadn't realized I was missing. Having past Chat arrive had helped, but there wasn't anything quite like hearing from my one and only kitty, even if it was just a text message.

I turned back to Chat, who was still simmering slightly under the collar (so to speak). Although, come to think of it, he would be kind of cute if he had a collar holding that bell of his. I'd have to sketch it out later. "I'm going to need to make an appearance at school," I said. "I'll be back to the Bakery for lunch, and I may have friends."

"Okay," he growled. "You know I hate being locked up, right?"

"Yes," I said softly. "But if you are a good kitty, there are chocolate croissants in your future."

He lifted an eyebrow. "I cannot be bribed, milady."

I kissed him again.

He sighed. "How I am ever able to say no to you, I will never know." He bounded up and out of the stadium, back toward the Bakery.

I exited myself and crossed the city as quickly as I could, and dropped into the side alley by school to drop my transformation. I was almost thirty minutes late, which was actually not all that unusual for Marinette. On more than a few occasions, Chat and I had needed to deal with an akuma before first period; but I had long since run out of excuses that made any sense to Principal Damocles. This morning, however, Ladybug Luck was on my side as the entire school was in a bit of disarray. I found several of my classmates milling about in the courtyard instead of in their classrooms.

Nino and Ayla, predictably, were there and pounced on me the moment I crossed the threshold of the courtyard. "What happened?" Ayla asked quietly. "Why didn't you call us? And-"

Nino didn't wait for Ayla to finish. "Where's Adrien?" he asked urgently, concern lacing his whisper.

The four of us – Ayla, Nino, Adrien and myself – were now well aware of our dual roles as students and Miraculous holders. I wasn't surprised that Ayla had wanted in on the morning's activities, and the fact that they both were as aware as I was that the timeline had changed brought me some hope that they might fit into the plan that was vaguely being formulated in my head.

"Guys," I said, as calmly as I could, "it's a long story. But bring me up to speed here first."

Nino started to object but Ayla shot him a glance that kept him from speaking. "Well," Ayla started. "Whatever the two of you were dealing with –" she saw my reaction, and added, parenthetically, "—yes, I saw the news coverage of Ladybug's 'new partner' – anyway, whatever you guys went after snarled traffic so badly that we're on a two hour delay this morning." She paused. "Principle Damocles may yet cancel today depending on what the attendance winds up being. Most of the teachers are still caught in traffic."

"Now," Nino said urgently, "_where's Adrien?!_"

"Back at the Bakery," I said. "But it's not _exactly_ Adrien." I looked around and made a decision. "Come on, let's get to the library and find a quiet nook to chat."

The three of us quickly went up the stairs to the next level and entered the abandoned library, found a table in the furthest stacks and huddled. There, I walked my friends through what had happened to Adrien/Chat Noir and brought them up to speed with the morning's events.

Nino sat back in his chair, after I finished. "So Chat is back in the past – for real?"

I nodded. "I texted him this morning, actually. It's getting a little strange back there, so we have move a bit faster to try and get this put right."

"But why don't I remember this?" Nino asked. "And why are we the only ones who know he's missing?"

"Miraculous Holders are apparently protected," I said. "Even though you two don't physically have possession of your particular jewels, you are connected still to your kwamis until you renounce them. Which you haven't."

Ayla frowned. "Chloe?"

"Even her," I said. "But for now, let's leave her out of this."

"No argument here," Nino said. "So, what's the plan?"

I pulled my tablet out of my bag. "First, we need to see how much of our own past we remember. I think that is going to be a key to fixing it; then, we need to coordinate with Chat and see where he is in the past timeline." I looked up. "I think he's getting close to the watershed moment back there that is used as the trigger here. If I am right, we'll have a chance to prevent it from happening and that should reset everything."

Ayla put her face on table. "This is making my head hurt."

"Tell me about it," I said. "Now, what is the first villain you remember Chat and I fighting?"

We wound up spending the rest of the morning collaborating on putting together a timeline of akumatized villains we had fought, ending with Mister Green Jeans, who I kept firmly in the active column. By 1020, the principle had called off school for the rest of the day, so we packed up and headed toward the Bakery.

"Remember," I said as we neared the residential entrance to my building. "My parents think he is an exchange student from America; Adrien will know you, but only as far as his relationships were with you a year ago."

"Well, that's a start," Nino said. "Does he know about…?"

"Carapace and Rena Rouge?" I shook my head. "No, but he will have to know now in order to understand why you two remember him."

"Okay," Ayla said.

We entered the house and went directly up to the spare bedroom. The door was closed, so I started to knock when it cracked open slightly to reveal Chat's masked visage. "Princess," he said as he pulled the door further open.

_Clever kitty,_ I thought.

I'd warned him I might be bringing friends with me, but hadn't told him they would know who he was. Answering as Chat would be the safest option. We came into the room and I closed the door behind me.

"It's okay, Chat. In this timeline, they know who you – who we – are."

A feline ear cocked in my direction, the only outward countenance that he had any doubts, but said nothing.

Ayla rushed him and pulled him into a big hug. "I'm glad you're okay," she said softly. "When we saw you were missing…"

Nino fist pumped Chat. "Dude, I know you're, like, fish-out-of-water here, but we'll get this fixed."

Chat smiled. "Thanks, dude," he said warmly. "I'm glad we stay friends. But how do you remember me?"

I took that one. "They are also Miraculous Holders, Chat. We call them in when we need some extra help."

"Not as often as I would like," Ayla grumbled. "But we are always glad to help."

"And we all know… who we are…?" Chat trailed off.

"In real life?" Nino said, smiling. "Dude, Adrien was the worst at disguising himself. But yes."

Chat looked at me. "I'm going to have to talk to my Ladybug when I get back."

I smiled and dug into my bag, retrieving the extra two Miraculouses and handing them to Ayla and Nino respectively. "Okay everyone - ready for a field trip?"

* * *

**AN: Thank you everyone for the comments and feedback. We're in the final act for this story - three chapters left plus my classic epilogue. **

**I should point out that Chat has informed me that I have misrepresented his texting ability; that, in fact, the claws make him faster on the keypad. I am awaiting independent verification from Ladybug on this, so stay tuned.**


	8. Getting Somewhere

_**Chat Noir (in the past)**_

There had been a time when Ladybug hadn't been ready to trust me with the secret of Master Fu. I knew who he was, of course; he'd come to me on multiple occasions, first to explain what I'd become and how I fit into the wider scheme, and then later to teach me how to use the special transformations that came with the gig. Most recently, he'd worked with Ladybug to drag me back from the brink of oblivion. I'd only been to his Parisian digs on a handful of occasions, generally when retrieving or returning the Bee Miraculous for Ladybug.

In this timeline, however, none of that had happened yet. Master Fu would clearly know who I was, of course, since he'd been the one to grant me the Cat Miraculous. But it was likely he would not be expecting me to drop in unannounced, either.

Ladybug followed me to a rooftop a few blocks away from his apartment, where I landed and then proceeded to clamber down to an adjacent alley. It rankled me slightly that she could simply lower herself down on the yo-yo, and in fact, was waiting for me when I finally reached the pavement. I decided not to give voice to my dismay.

"We need to transform here and go in as our normal selves," I said. "Chat Noir would be a little obvious, as would Ladybug."

"Got it," she said. "Tikki – spots off!"

"Plagg – claws in!"

Two flashes later and we were already headed down the street and into his building. As we came out of the elevator on his floor, Master Fu was already waiting at his open doorway.

"Chat Noir, Ladybug," he nodded sagely. "Welcome."

"How do you do that?" I asked as he let us into his tiny room, supporting his cover story that he was a simple traditional healer, belying his century-and-three-quarter status as the Keeper of the Miraculouses.

He waved us down to the pillows surrounding his simple tea set. "I've been expecting you, Adrien. The Cat Miraculous is no longer in Paris, and Wayzz and the other kwamis had lost contact with Plagg; yet we were still seeing Chat Noir in action on the news." He inclined his head toward me. "And you are clearly here."

"Well, Master-" I started.

Plagg flew out from his customary position inside my button down and interrupted. "Master," he nodded. "This Cat Miraculous holder is from about a year in the future. Your Cat Miraculous holder is currently there. We've been able to establish contact with the Tikki from my timeline and confirm the swap."

Fu nodded sagely. "Someone has used the time spell from the Grimoire."

"Yes," I said. "We're not sure who at this point, but both Ladybugs feel that the trigger event is here in the past, although it gets called from the future." I paused. "It feels like Hawkmoth's fingerprints are all over this. My Ladybug says he was surprised to see Chat Noir in the future."

"Why?" Fu asked pointedly.

"Uh, do you mind if I transform?" I asked. "It might be faster to show you the text messages from Ladybug."

"Of course."

"Plagg – claws out!"

I ran through my transformation as quickly as I could and then produced my baton for Master Fu, opened to the text message function. I pointed to the thread with a claw tip. "Ladybug says Adrien does not exist in the future currently."

"Indeed," he murmured as he scanned the thread.

Marinette spoke up. "Both versions of me have concluded that the time spell seems to have removed Adrien from the timeline; but the Miraculous magic protected him by sending him to the past instead."

"That seems to have led to the swap," I continued. "I think I am here, now, to help correct the timeline."

"And future Ladybug – future me, that is, thinks you have something that can help us," Marinette added.

Fu looked up and handed me back the baton. "I think Ladybug is right. Hawkmoth suspects he knows who Chat Noir really is."

He looked at me, pointedly. "This complicates matters greatly," he said. "Future me has likely told Ladybug that Miraculous holders are immune to changes in the timeline. That works in both directions – if we manage to restore the timeline, _we _will remember both histories as if they had actually happened."

"Wait," Marinette said. "We thought if we corrected the timeline –"

"No one would remember the deviation?" Master Fu smiled. "That is true – except for us." He turned back to me. "Future Hawkmoth won't easily forget how he connected you to your alter ego." He turned back to Marinette. "Those of us back here in the past, though, are less likely to remember with clarity exact details of the deviation. But it is important that we close out this time eddy before it gets worse."

"Wait," Marinette said. "So there is a chance I will remember _all _of what Chat has said to me? What we've done in this timeline?" She looked aghast. "Won't that change the future?"

Master Fu smiled his enigmatic smile. "No, my child. This is, in fact, exactly how the future should play out." He paused for a moment. "We just don't know that, yet."

I raised a masked eyebrow. "That makes zero sense."

"Mistress Time is like that." He smiled again. "Trust me," he said.

He turned to his stack of books on a side table. "I do think there is something that might help, though. Return to me when it's time for you to make contact again with Ladybug. It might be helpful if we can coordinate with my alternate self as well."

I flipped to the GPS function and saw that Ladybug was actually _in _my current location. "She's visiting you now," I said.

He raised his eyebrows and I clicked over to the text message system.

**_Chat: _**_U there? At Master Fu and he wants to talk to you._

* * *

_**Chat Noir (present day)**_

I was still plenty peeved that Ladybug had made a pact with Hawkmoth, but the edge of my anger had been blunted by the appearance of my best friend, Nino, and Marinette's best friend, Ayla. Even in my timeline, the four of us had hung out together quite a bit. But it was odd finding out that they knew my identity and were, themselves, Miraculous Holders; Ladybug had taken me aside while they were transforming, though, to warn me they'd only been active for a few months and were almost as raw as when we'd first been tapped.

Nino's turtle theme was hard to get used to, but who was I to critique costumes? I had a bell on mine, so I cut him a bit of slack on the goggles-and-hoodie look. Ayla's though, was really something. If I hadn't already pledged my heart to Ladybug, that fox number she was wearing would have given me pause. And daydreams.

I snapped out of it as Ladybug slid the window to my borrowed room wider. "Follow me," she said as she threw her yo-yo out the window and went sailing after it. We trooped out behind her, a motley assortment of critter-based superheroes, and made for the Paris skyline. Ladybug was right – Rena seemed to have caught on to the jumping/rolling/leaping aspect of our personas, but Carapace had terribly difficulty crossing any distance easily. I started to hang back and assist him without making it seem like I was helping, though I knew Nino well enough that I'd probably hear about it afterward.

At length the four of us dropped down on a flat roof in a nondescript part of Paris I'd never visited. Ladybug gathered us in close.

"Carapace and Rena, wait here while Chat and I go in."

"Check," Rena said.

"Dude," Carapace added. "We'll be here when you get back."

"Chat?"

I followed Ladybug over the side of the building and jumped down through several balconies before arriving on the ground. She had lowered herself on that blooming yo-yo in one easy motion, and was smiling at me when I dropped into a crouch beside her. "That bugs both of you, it seems," she said sweetly.

"Shall we?" I said tartly. She'd already explained we couldn't arrive transformed. "Plagg – claws in."

"Tikki – spots off."

We crossed the street and I followed her into an older apartment building, and we rode the elevator to Master Fu's floor. When the elevator opened, I spotted an older Asian gentleman patiently waiting at his door. I immediately recognized him as the elderly gentleman I'd helped get to his feet in front of school on that first day I tried to go.

"I know you," I said as we approached him.

"Yes, Chat Noir, you do." He stepped aside. "Come in, please."

"Sorry we're early," Marinette apologized as we entered his tidy front room. "The situation has changed a bit," she added, inclining her head in my direction.

My eyes roamed the room, which for all the world appeared to be a simple space used to treat clients with traditional medicines. A small rug surrounded by comfortable looking cushions was in the middle, with a tea set prepped and waiting off to the side. Master Fu indicated we should sit, and we each took a pillow.

"When did Chat arrive?"

"Maybe an hour after I left you? So about twenty-five hours after Adrien disappeared."

He turned to me. "But you didn't notice a break in time?"

"No," I answered. "I blinked and went from 'then' to 'now' if that makes any sense."

Fu nodded as if I had confirmed something for him. "What else?"

"Hawkmoth was surprised at my appearance," I said. "He also seems to have connected Chat Noir to Adrien."

Something passed across Master Fu's face. "That complicates matters," he said.

"Ladybug agreed to help him locate/return Adrien to this timeline," I said icily. "While I don't entirely support working with him, I trust her judgement and concur it might give us some insights into him."

Fu looked up and into space. "We now have to solve two problems, then. Fixing the timeline and disconnecting Chat Noir from Adrien." He smiled. "I think we should be able to accomplish that."

"How?" I asked.

Master Fu looked to Ladybug. "Entropic Transformation."

I turned to Marinette and watched as quite literally all of the color drained from her face. "No…" she breathed. "There has to be another way."

"I don't think so, my dear."

"Entropic what?" I asked.

"Entropic Transformation," Marinette said, eyes wide with worry. "We, uh, had a run in with it a few months ago. It's extremely old magic, very dark, and nearly defeated us."

I felt my eyes widen. "That can't be good."

"I can't see another way," Master Fu said. He stood up and retrieved a stack of books from the side table, and a modern iPad that was thoroughly at odds with the antique nature of the bindings. "We are still missing the trigger event, but once we have that, we'll know _when_ we need to trigger the Transformation."

"Trigger it?" Marinette said. "We didn't exactly have a choice last time."

Master Fu held up a vial of colorful liquid that seemed to move with a life of it's own. "I brewed this up from the sample you gave me – you remember those darts, right?" He handed it to Marinette. "When the time is right, give it to Chat. It's not a strong as what was in the dart, but it will be enough to put him into the Transformation state."

"State?" I said blankly. "Why does that sound vaguely dangerous?"

"Because it is," Marinette replied without looking at me. "I thought what Chat experienced had been some out-of-body metaphysical thing. Are you saying that the Transformation creates a place?"

"Not so much as a place, but a holding area," Master Fu answered. "It's a non-entropic bubble that has no connection to time." He turned to me. "If we can get both Chat Noirs into the bubble at just the right moment, they should be able to swap places and return to where they should be, while also repairing the timeline in the process."

"Repair it? How?" I asked, trying to ignore what seemed like mumbo jumbo, even to a science fiction nerd like myself.

"I suspect you'll see it when you are there, and both of you will know what to do when you do."

I sat back. "Still not making any sense, Master Fu."

Marinette smiled at me. "You get used to it."

"Okay," I said. "So, what is the trigger event?"

Master Fu pulled out his tablet and brought up a picture. Marinette nodded when she saw it. "The Miraculous Grimoire," she said to me by way of explanation. "Your father has the original."

"He does?" I replied. "Does he know what it is?"

A look passed between Marinette and Master Fu. "No," Fu answered. "His explanation to Chat Noir at the time was that it's been an inspiration for his designs over the years." He zoomed in on some text.

"This is the Time Reveal spell," he said. "It's forbidden to use by my order, mostly because it can have unintended consequences – such as changes to the timeline."

Master Fu swiped to another image. "Whoever used it appears to have miscast it. The primary danger with this spell is the attraction to use it to peer into events that have yet to occur in an attempt to sway them. Mistress Time tends to frown on such foreknowledge, however, which generally leads to outcomes such as what we are experiencing."

The light bulb came on. "Hawkmoth," I said. "He must have tried to use it to see how we would defeat him – either our next match up, or the ultimate one where we finally wrestle control of his Miraculous away from him."

Marinette nodded. "I think you're right, Adrien." She looked to Master Fu. "In looking ahead, he broke the past. But how?"

"And how did he know about the spell?" I added. "If my Father has the only copy of the Grimoire…" I leaned forward. "You're not suggesting he is Hawkmoth, are you?"

"No," Master Fu said carefully. "There are many ways that he may have come into possession of this spell. But it would be worth trying to find out at some point." He looked to Marinette, pointedly. "I suspect, though, he won't mess with this particular magic again. It has cost him more than he realized."

She nodded. "I see two things we need now," she said. "First, we need to tell me in the past to have you brew up some of this for that Chat," she started, swirling the flask.

"Second," I added, "we need to know what the event is." I looked at Fu. "The two of you know more about what happens between my time and yours. I don't think I can help much."

Marinette pulled a tablet out of the bag she was carrying. "Carapace, Rena and I dredged through our collective memories and pulled together the list of who Chat and I fought in that period," Marinette said. "From the text message I got from Chat earlier, he's up through here—" she pointed to something on the tablet, "but he says this encounter with Mister Pigeon jumped ahead."

"Mister Pigeon?" I asked. "Please tell me I don't have to deal with feathers…"

"You will. Or you did, take your pick," she smiled.

"It has to be a particularly emotion-driven event, specifically for Chat," Master Fu said.

Marinette looked at me suddenly. "That's it," she said. She turned back to the tablet. "This one."

Master Fu read the entry. "Copycat?" He looked up. "Why?"

"It was one of the rare times Chat acted on his jealousy," she said simply. "And then I crushed him, badly, without realizing I had."

My eyes widened. "I did what?" I looked at her. "And you did what?" My head was spinning. "Copycat? Is that what is sounds like?"

"Yes," Marinette said. "Hawkmoth produces a villain that is an exact copy of you, right down to your powers. He nearly convinced me he was you at the time."

"He tries to swap with me?" I asked, sensing what the underlying theme might have been with that villain.

Marinette sighed, weighing how much to tell me. "Yes," she said at length. "But we managed to stop it from happening."

"Obviously." I looked to Master Fu. "But it has already happened here, right? How can it be the trigger?"

"It's not the trigger here, Adrien," Fu said. "It's triggered from here."

It finally clicked. "Wait. Hawkmoth using the spell in the first place is what sends me back – future me, right?" I started. "While I am there, this Copycat villain appears, but we don't resolve it like we did originally. That leads to my disappearance from the timeline." I looked at Master Fu. "That's it, right?"

"Yes," Master Fu said with an approving smile. "Very good, Chat Noir."

"And past me arriving here is an artifact of the Miraculous Magic?"

"Yes, I believe so. A way to protect the affected holder."

"So let me get this straight," I said, smiling widely as if I were in costume. "We need to now change the changed past to keep the future from changing, right?"

Marinette leaned over and hugged me. "Once Chat, always Chat."

Tiki fluttered out of Marinette's purse. "Marinette, Chat is trying to reach you…"

She looked to Master Fu. "Do you mind if we transform?" she asked. "I think we both need to be for this," she added, glancing at me.

"Of course," he said.

* * *

_**Ladybug (present day)**_

The glow from our mutual transformations faded and I pulled out my yo-yo, quickly clicking over to the text function.

**_Chat: _**_U there? At Master Fu and he wants to talk to you._

**_LB: _**_Yes, with Master Fu as well. Go._

**_Chat:_**_ I'll type as fast as I can. Hard w claws_

**_LB: _**_Stop whining kitty_

**_Chat:_**_ Funny. Fu sez: Entropic Transformation?_

**_LB: _**_Concur here. Have formula to send._

**_Chat: _**_Not happy to hear that (me, not Fu). Fu sez: trigger event has not happened yet?_

**_LB: _**_Concur. Think it is Copycat incident._

**_Chat: _**_Figures._

**_LB: _**_Stop editorializing._

**_Chat: _**_Whatevs. Fu sez: exact timing critical. Possible to do?_

I looked up to Master Fu. "Past you is worried about how we time this," I said.

Fu nodded. "That is the trickiest part." He thought for a moment. "Tell him: Transcendental."

I texted that and looked up. "What do you mean? Like the meditation?"

"In a way. I presume the two Chats have already sensed each other across time?"

Chat nodded. "Yes, in fact," he said. "While we were overwhelmed by that poppy gas. I could see the other Chat as he fell from the Eiffel Tower."

My yo-yo buzzed.

**_Chat: _**_Fu concurs. Why do I feel like I'm screwed?_

**_LB:_**_ You've done this once before, can do it again. Details to follow._

"He's not happy about it," I said, "but he'll go through with it. Give me the formula and I'll send it."

I spent the better part of the next hour sending cryptic instructions to the Fu at the other end, including the formula and how we'd work the plan when the time came. My fingers were pretty tired and I was certain Chat had worn down a claw or two on his side. Chat on my side had bopped out to release Carapace and Rena – but allowed them to keep their jewels. There was an excellent chance we'd need them in a pinch if this went sideways with Hawkmoth.

**_Chat:_**_ Got it. Will reach out when event happens or at bedtime, whichever comes first._

**_LB: _**_Good. We'll stay close to Master Fu._

**_Chat: _**_love you and miss you xxuu_

**_LB: _**_Ditto. Now say goodnight, Chat._

**_Chat: _**_Goodnight, Chat._

I looked up. "Now we wait."

Master Fu caught my eye. "While we wait, my dear, could I have a private word with you…?"

* * *

**AN: If you are curious about the background behind the Entropic Transformation, it made it's initial appearance in _Elegy for a Chat_. I won't spoil anything if you skipped that story to get here... but... it might be helpful to re-read that story before you keep going. **

**The next chapter will post tomorrow evening (March 20, 2019) and then the final two chapters will post this weekend. It is March Madness here in the United States so my screen time will be limited. ;-)**


	9. Coming Past Attractions

_**Chat Noir (in the past)**_

We waited while Master Fu brewed up the concoction that future Master Fu had sent back, and while it simmered, he went over the finer points of the plan. I wasn't happy that it involved re-entering the bubble Entropic Transformation creates; that was hard to deal with the first time, and this time around would be even more problematic. But what bothered me more was having to go through the Copycat caper. It was literally one of the lowest points in my early days as Chat Noir; I'd learned a lot from it, but had nearly lost everything in the process.

Not to mention how I'd felt after hearing what Ladybug thought about me.

Knowing it would (did? will? I was getting confused now) lead to my disappearance in the future made the stakes all the higher. But I couldn't argue with the logic. If there was one emotional touchstone from the past that Hawkmoth would reach to, it would be that one.

Master Fu decanted the solution and while it cooled, he went over the transcendental portion of the plan. "The idea is for you to center yourself, much as Ladybug had you do after Mister Pigeon," he started. "Can you remember how you got to that state?"

"Yes," I said, "but how will I be able to get that calm in the middle of an akuma attack?"

Master Fu smiled that enigmatic smile of his. "Don't worry," he said. "Time will slow down for you, and you'll be able to do it."

"Right," I said, unconvinced.

"Once you make it to that state, Chat in the future will hear you, essentially. You need only get one thought to him – 'now.' That will trigger their end of the plan."

"Why can't I just text them?" I mewled.

"You'll be chained down and have lost your baton, if what you've told me holds true." He smiled again. "This will work, trust yourself."

"Right," I repeated.

Master Fu handed the vial to Marinette. "Have him drink this no less than thirty minutes before he encounters Copycat for the final time."

"Master," I said, "if the incident unfolds as it did, she won't get to me until it's well within that timeframe."

He smiled. "I think it will unfold a bit differently," he said. "Now go and get some rest. I feel as though tomorrow will be a big day for everyone."

"Plagg – claws in."

I dropped back to Adrien and together Marinette and I bid Master Fu goodbye and returned to the alley. It was early evening and slightly dusky now – both of us would soon be missed at our respective homes.

"We need to get back," I said. "But how do you want to work this? If Master Fu is right, tomorrow is the day."

"You know where the workshop is, right?" We'd gone over the entire affair from top to bottom, including my humiliation at being captured unawares. I'd left out the part where Ladybug had crushed my heart, but somehow felt like I'd telegraphed it to this Ladybug. She'd been nothing but gentle about the whole thing.

"Yes," I said.

"Then we do this. You make your move with Theo, and then meet me on that rooftop you like close to the Bakery. We'll wait for him to rob the Louvre and then go immediately to the workshop. I suspect he'll already be waiting."

"Okay," I said. "But I've not seen anything about a dedication yet."

"You mean, like that?" She pointed to one of the massive televisions that were throughout the city. This one was just rolling an announcement about the statue dedication by the Mayor in the morning at the park.

"Wow," I said, "was Mistress Time listening in on our conversation?"

"Possibly," she smiled. "Tikki – spots on!"

"Plagg – claws out!"

I gave Ladybug a quick hug and we went our separate ways. I managed to get back to the mansion and drop my transformation in time for Nathalie to poke her head into my bedroom and ask if I wanted dinner. Unsure if were to be my last, I trudged down and snarfed up what was on offer, surreptitiously stealing more cheese than normal for Plagg in the process.

There was homework to finish but for some reason I was bone weary, and decided to drop into bed directly after dinner. Plagg seemed to feel the same and we were out like lights almost from the moment we hit our respective pillows (though to be fair, he'd been spending more and more time in the dirty clothes basket).

I woke up tired, which is never good, and wondered if the changing time flow was starting to affect me. I showered, dressed for school, grabbed my fencing kit and made it to breakfast before Nathalie had to find me. Gorilla got me to school right on time and I settled into class after passing a knowing glance to Marinette.

In the original unfolding, I had skipped out of part of Fencing practice to attend the dedication. The schedule was off already since the Mayor was now appearing at nine. At 0845, I excused myself from class and made my way to the men's locker room; finding it completely empty, I transformed immediately and bounded out the open windows and into the morning sunshine.

I dropped into the park just ahead of the top of the hour, and everyone was there as before: the Mayor, with his formal sash of office, the media, well-wishers and, of course, a nervous looking Theo. I leaned on the statue in a Chat Noir leisurely way and tried to channel earlier me. Theo had his photo of Ladybug in his hand, the one that would hold the akuma later. I felt the early stirrings of jealousy blooming and held onto that feeling as the ceremony went on without Ladybug.

At length, it was over and the crowd started to disperse. Theo was halfway to akuma land with LB's absence, so I started my move.

"These statues are amazing, but one thing is off." I observed. "I'm actually a head taller than Ladybug."

"Ladybug didn't show up," Theo said dejectedly. "I just wanted to express my adoration for her. Let her know that everything I had went into her statue. I'm sure if she took a little time to get to know me, she would see how much we have in common. Our devotion to the things we love…"

"Uh," I said, hesitating before going in for what I knew was going to be the killer blow. It had been so much easier before. I swallowed. "I hate to burst your bubble, but you know Ladybug and I are an item, right?"

"You are?"

I steeled myself and put on my worst Chat-about-town face. "Yeah," I said, showing him my crossed fingers. "We're like this."

That did it. He mumbled something and stalked off. I watched him go, dreading everything to come.

I waited a few minutes and then bounded into the sky, vaulted to the rooftops and worked my way over to my favorite spot overlooking Notre Dame. Ladybug was already there, and had her tablet tuned to the local all-news station. "Well," I said morosely, "that went well."

She smiled thinly. "It says something about who you've become that you can recognize – and change – your behavior."

"Thanks, I think." I flopped down beside her on the tile. "Now we wait."

It turned out not to be that long. In less than an hour, the first reports that Chat Noir had robbed the Louvre hit, followed by breathtaking video of me (well, the clone of me) bounding away from the museum with his stolen goods. I sighed, knowing the moment of truth had arrived.

Ladybug handed me the flask.

"I'm still not sure I'll know the moment," I said as I upended it and took it in one gulp. "Hmm," I said appreciatively. "Grape flavored, nice touch."

"I think you will," Ladybug said. "Now go, I'll be right behind you. And Chat," she said.

"Yes, milady?"

She kissed me. "I love you, both here and there. Never forget that."

"Of course, milady," I said, trying not to swoon.

I leapt into the air and somersaulted into a dive-and-tuck to the next building over, intending to enjoy my last moments of they were to be that. If I screwed this up, I might actually really be gone, permanently. It was a sobering thought.

I worked my way across the city to Theo's workshop, which was exactly where it should be. I landed next to the skylight as I had done previously, saw it was laid out identically to before, including that damnable porcelain kitty that would shortly be my downfall.

I sighed again.

There was no point in calling past Ladybug, since my baton wouldn't reach her. But I could text my Ladybug. I flipped open the phone.

**_Chat:_**_ About to go in. If this doesn't go well –_

**_LB: _**_It will. See you on the other side._

**_Chat: _**_Love ya_

**_LB: _**_Ditto_

I closed the baton and placed it at the small of my back, lifted the skylight open and dropped into the space. I didn't expect to see Copycat yet, so I moved slowly into the main area where the kitten atop the crate was awaiting my arrival.

The note was just where I expected it, and I tried not to laugh at the insanity of what I was doing. Any rational person would run screaming from the space. Instead, I picked up the note and read it, just as before.

"The cat's in the bag?"

One puff of smoke and the metallic sound of chains later, I was manacled once more to the floor of the workshop via a long chain running through an anchor embedded into the concrete, one hand unable to move without pulling the other in the wrong direction. I made a show of trying to pull out the anchor with my super strength, then went to the final option.

"Cataclysm!" I cried.

Nothing happened.

I looked at my manacled hand. My ring was already showing one pad missing; how had I missed that? The potion had already started to work and was draining my Miraculous as it had the first time I'd been shot with it.

I'd not accounted for that. This was going to be tight.

"I don't see what she sees in you," Copycat said, coming up behind me. "A fool who so easily walks into my trap – and can't even get his super power to work properly," he said harshly as he came around to my front.

I made a show of reaching for my baton, knowing already that he had it. I looked up at him angrily.

"Looking for this?" he asked, holding up my baton.

I remained silent, realizing that the next part was not going to unfold properly. For my baton was not going to ring; Ladybug had no way to call me. I was the wrong Chat, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

_This is the moment. And I _am_ the cause of the change to the timeline._

Copycat stood there, trying to decide his next move. He tossed the batons to the ground and held up his hand. "Cataclysm!" he cried, and I watched as the power flowed to his fingertips. I also knew, in that moment, what he was intending to do with it.

_Wow. That's harsh!_

"Let me show you how it's done," he said with a quiet fury. "Then, by the time Ladybug gets here, there will only be one Chat Noir for her to choose from."

He started toward me, slowly, and I couldn't help the look of fear that must have appeared on my masked face. I'd never had any thought of what it might look like at the end, and this didn't seem remotely right. I slowed my breathing down and focused on the incoming hand.

_In._

_Out._

_In._

_Out._

My heartbeat slowed and I started to reach out for my other self. I could see the filaments that connected us, somehow, and tugged on one to snap it to attention.

Something tugged back.

_Now_, was the last thing I thought as Copycat brushed his fingertips across my face and the world dissolved around me.

* * *

_**Chat Noir**_

As before, I woke up laying in a field of waist-high grass. The air still had that sickly sweet smell to it, like breathing pure honey, and my lungs couldn't get enough of it. I sat up and felt the gentle breeze ruffle my hair; I could feel my feline ears and visually saw I was still in costume, claws and all. Very much still intact, it seemed.

I stood up, carefully, and squinted into the brilliant light that was everywhere. I didn't exactly know what I was looking for, but intuitively started moving upward this time, realizing that "up" and "down" had different significances now. There hadn't been a metaphysical meaning, after all; instead, the gentle slopes were representing time itself, where I was and where I wanted to go. Up was home for me. I was hoping the other me was there, waiting to go down.

Time was irrelevant, but after what felt like an hour, my feline sight saw a cat-like shape heading in my direction. It took a bit longer, but we finally met up. It felt a bit like Copycat redux, but I knew it was me.

"Chat," I said.

"Chat," he replied, smiling. "Fancy meeting you here."

"Yeah," I said. "Hey, thanks for taking care of Ladybug up there."

"Least I could do," he said, smiling at me. "Especially now that I know there's a happy ending to that particular story."

I winked. "Oh yeah. Your Ladybug might be a bit warmer now, actually," I said. "Don't move too quickly, ease into it. That's the only advice I can give you – well, me."

"Master Fu thought we might all remember some part of this when it's over," he said. "I hope that's true."

"Me, too," I said. I grinned at him. "I never expected to have a conversation with myself," I said. "It's a little weird."

"Kind of like that _Star Trek_ episode, isn't it?" he smiled back. "The one where Kirk gets split in two?"

"Hmm," I said. "I hope not. I'd hate to have to re-integrate my dark side."

"Hey!" he said.

"Just kidding." I sobered. "Ready for the next part?"

"I think so. Do you know what to do?"

"Yes," I said with certainty.

I closed my eyes and extended my senses as much as I could. I knew what I was looking for, but couldn't describe it, exactly.

_There._

My eyes snapped open. "It's some distance that way. Come on."

I started trotting toward what I'd detected, and Chat followed behind me. As with my last trip through the bubble, distance really didn't have much meaning; the grass didn't seem to move as we did, and the horizon never got any closer. But there was an area of darkness, faint at first, growing as we approached it. For the first time, it gave a sense of direction.

As we neared it, the bright light began to go gloomy. I knew we had arrived at the center of whatever it was when it was nearly totally dark, forcing me to use my night vision. What I could see in that mode, though, made my head swim. Twisting threads of what had to be time itself were bizarrely twirled into a massive ball, and I could see it pulling in energy from all angles. I watched as it grew in size before us, tangling ever more.

It looked for all the world like a giant ball of yarn, though I knew it an entity millions of times more powerful. But if I was correct, this was the actual knot time itself had created when the spell had been cast incorrectly.

Somehow, it seemed cosmically appropriate that a cat had been sent to untangle it.

"Wow," Chat said. "This even _feels_ wrong."

"I feline it too," I agreed and had the odd view of myself rolling my eyes at me.

"And now that we're here?"

I looked at my ring. It was charged, as I'd expected it to be. "I think it will take both of us," I said. "Once we destroy the knot, it should throw us clear and, hopefully, back to where we belong."

"And if you're wrong?"

"Well, we'll still destroy the knot." I smiled. "What cat wouldn't love to go out like that?"

He smiled at me. "I like your style, Chat." He smiled wider. "Well, _my _style…"

"Ready?"

"Yep."

I counted to three. "Cataclysm!" we cried in unison, and together, we watched the power roll to our hands.

I stepped as close as I could and thrust my hand into the tangle of time, and he did the same next to me. I was buffeted by currents that I couldn't imagine, but held my ground and watched in amazement as our magic of destruction worked its way through the tangle over overlapping threads. One by one they dissolved, and the air started to get brighter around us.

Slowly, the light regained the space, leaving just the two of us standing there amidst the gently waving grass. At last, it was just the two of us.

"That was easier than I thought," Chat said.

"Yeah," I agreed.

"So," he started, "how do we get out of here?"

I scratched my chin with a claw tip. "Last time, I used Cataclysm to break out of the bubble; but I think, actually, we decide exactly how we want to exit. And where we wish to exit to."

He nodded. "All right. I know 'when' I want to be. You?"

"Same here." I smiled. "You also gave me an idea for how we can get out," I said.

He smiled back. "I had the same thought," he laughed. "You are such a dork."

"Pot and kettle," I replied. "Ready?"

He held up the split-fingered Vulcan salute. "Live long and prosper, Chat."

I raised my hand back. "Peace and long life, Chat."

A _Star Trek_-style transporter beam enveloped both of us, and we started to dissolve away into nothingness.

_Well_, I thought, _at least I got to kiss Ladybug._

* * *

_**Ladybug (present day)**_

Chat was lying flat on his back in the middle of Master Fu's main space, and had the most angelic expression on his face. We'd managed to get him under the effects of the potion at the exact moment needed, but it was hard to know how long was too long.

After my side conversation with Master Fu, I'd recalled Nino and Ayla before we'd put Chat under, just in case we needed some extra assistance if there were any fallout. That, and they would be close at hand for the second part of our plan – assuming, of course, the first part went off without a hitch.

Carapace was sitting to his side, trying hard not to hyperventilate. Rena had her tablet in her lap, and was furiously looking for any changes that might indicate the timeline had started to restore. I knew something had happened when she let out a long, long breath.

She looked up at me. "The ads are back," she said simply. She turned the tablet toward me, and I'd never thought I'd ever be happy to see a perfume ad as much as I was. There was Adrien, in that spread for the new perfume his father had introduced earlier in the year.

I went to Master Fu's window, and the billboard across the street was also back to normal.

The room suddenly filled with a blinding electric light; I turned in time to see Chat's body enveloped in multiple bands of energy, swirling with a power that was almost palpable. It lasted only a few seconds, and then faded away to nothingness.

Chat suddenly gasped for breath, and I dropped back to his side just as his wide, green eyes fluttered open. He was lost for a moment, and then his eyes focused in on mine. "Ladybug," he said warmly, wide Chat smile. "It's good to see you again."

I looked to Master Fu, who nodded.

"Are you… you?" I asked when I turned back to Chat.

"Lord I hope so," he said, as he held up the hand that had the ladybug ring I'd given him. "I don't want to see another porcelain kitty. Ever. Again."

I bent down and scooped him into a massive hug. Rena was sobbing in the corner, and I was pretty sure Carapace had turned away to hide behind his shell. I didn't care and openly cried with joy.

I had him back.

All of the emotion I'd been holding in check came flooding out, and he pulled me in close, allowing me to sob against his chest. I wasn't sure, but I thought he was getting a little sappy too, but was trying to keep his manly Chat front up to hide it.

I truly didn't care.

Master Fu spent another hour checking Chat over before he pronounced him whole and sent us on our way. Now it was time for the second part of my plan, and I needed Rena's help to pull it off.

Having no way to contact Hawkmoth, we returned to the stadium, but not before Chat had dropped his transformation to become Adrien. Through Rena's efforts, it appeared that I arrived at midfield carrying Adrien, with Chat by my side. I hoped fervently we could pull this off a second time, having run the same double-blind hoax on Adrien's father less than a week ago.

I stood in the field and called out. "Hawkmoth, we've found him and restored the timeline."

At first, there was nothing. Then, as I'd hoped, the speaker system for the stadium burst to life.

_"Very nice work, Ladybug. I am a man of my word; I will release Mister Green Jeans. You win this round."_

"Thank you, Hawkmoth," I said to the air. "If you don't mind, we'd like to get him home now."

_"Until our next encounter, Ladybug. And there will be a next encounter."_

"Of that I have no doubt," I said, smiling. I turned to Adrien. "Let's get you home."

We met Rena where she'd been hiding with Carapace, and Adrien transformed back to Chat Noir. I retrieved the Miraculous from her and Nino, and then Chat and I were on our way toward the mansion and the final test that we had pulled it off.

We landed on the roof opposite and saw his bedroom window was open as it usually was. Chat turned to me and reached over to the pendant that I'd stubbornly worn twenty-four-seven since he'd disappeared, gently running a claw tip over the Le Chat Noir figurine. He didn't have to say a word; I knew exactly what he was thinking and nodded to him, my blue eyes locked into his wide green cat eyes.

He leaned down and kissed me, deeply, and then buried his head in my hair. "This part I need to do myself, but I intend to pick up where we left off the other night, milady," he said, voice muffled.

I reached up and scratched that particular spot behind one of his feline ears I knew he couldn't resist and was rewarded immediately with contented rumbling purr from my kitty. "I'll be waiting," I said as I pulled his head back and planted another deep kiss on his smooth lips.

Chat pulled back and gave me a wistful look. "Until this evening, bugaboo," he said with that sly smile and wink, and then he was away from me in his typically overdone double barrel roll with a twist over the edge of the building.

I sighed. "I really do hate that name," I said to his receding form.

He surprised me by tacking away from the bedroom and redirecting to his bathroom window, which was likely a safer entrance. I watched as he tucked in and landed safely on the windowsill, then disappeared from sight altogether.

I knew I had to go, and yet, I stood there, at a crossroads.

Even before he'd returned from the past, I'd become convinced that we remained in great personal danger from Hawkmoth. Master Fu had similar concerns, which he'd voiced while we'd been waiting for the trigger event. He had also brought me a solution, one that I had not immediately agreed with.

Now, as I watched my kitty return home, I wasn't as certain.

_We could lose all of this,_ I thought. _It's a chance to protect it._

Tears rose, unbidden, and my view of Chat as he entered his bedroom swam. I watched as he looked around and was certain if I could see as good as he could, I'd see him wearing a wide Chat grin to finally be back where he belonged.

If he'd looked across the way, his better feline vision _would_ have seen me, and that was something I couldn't take. With a heavy heart I quickly turned and headed back to Master Fu's apartment.

* * *

**AN: Ladybug always has a plan. But this time, is it a good one? One chapter plus an epilogue to find out... although I am not certain that is enough time...**

**Just a reminder, no new posts for this until Saturday (March 23, 2019). (Yes, I am doing the evil laugh for making you wait for the finale.)**


	10. Uncharted Waters

_**Chat Noir (present day)**_

As I arced over the fence, I made a last-minute decision to scoot to the side and slide through the also open bathroom window. I couldn't have put a claw on it, exactly, but it felt like a safer move to drop in there first.

I landed on the sill and waited for a moment, listening, then dropped down to the marble with a gentle rubbery _thunk_ from my boots. The space was pretty much as I had left it a few days earlier; the wrapper for the corsage I'd bought for Marinette was still on the sideboard by the sink, and the various bottles of hair product and cologne haphazardly sitting in front of the mirror. On a hunch, I opened the closet and hunted for my favorite suit and was saddened to see that it was now among the missing, along with the tie from my mother.

Then again, it wasn't truly missing; it was back, with me, at some past point. I wondered idly if that meant I'd introduced a change to the timeline inadvertently and fervently hoped that wasn't the case.

I slid the door to the closet closed and then pressed my feline ear to the connecting door with the bedroom. The space was empty as well, so I slid the door open and stepped out into my room. Everything was where it was supposed to be; even the homework that was due this week was still on my desk, partially completed. I flipped a few pages with my claw, suddenly seeing the physics work in a completely new light.

_I've learned more about science since becoming Chat than anything I'd seen at school_.

I moved through the room, slowly taking in what had always been uniquely my space. For so long, I'd railed against being essentially locked up in it that I'd never really thought about it as "home." Now, I was feeling very differently. It may never be a sanctuary for me, but it had become a touchstone to my place in time. I'd not forget that.

I leapt to the top of the couch and balanced, cat style, on the back, and watched life as it went past my massive windows. Master Fu had said we might remember echoes of what our past selves had done during this little adventure. I was finding that they were becoming blended in with the original memories, augmenting them in a way that made them more powerful.

The missing bedroom past me had seen was there, front and center. As I replayed that night with Ladybug, a chill ran down my feline spine at the realization it _had _happened. Someone, likely Hawkmoth, had wiped Adrien from the face of time itself. And I had seen the evidence with my own eyes. It was sobering how easily all of it had gone away.

A feline ear swiveled, and I knew someone was headed toward the bedroom.

"Plagg – claws in."

* * *

_**Chat Noir (in the past)**_

"…pick on someone your own temperature?" I was saying as I perched on top of the fencepost outside the park.

I paused, blinking back a sudden wave of vertigo, and then looked down into the street.

Stormy Weather was down on the cobblestones, not looking overly pleased by my monologue (or would that be a cat-a-logue, I wondered?).

I blinked again.

_It worked!_

I looked over my shoulder and the set for the photo shoot was exactly as I had left it; in the far distance, I could see the ice cube that had been the carousel, and knew instinctively Ayla and that minion of hers were under it, waiting to be rescued.

I looked back to Stormy, who clearly was waiting on me. I couldn't help but smile as I swung off the fence post and slid down the rails one handed, repeating the lines I knew by heart now. "Listen," I said twirling my tail and barely repressing my full Chat Noir charisma, "I'm _feline_ more generous than usual today. So, cool down and we'll call it quits, 'kay?"

I didn't even brace for the gust that blew me away, trusting in Mistress Time that I'd ping-pong correctly through the parked vehicles and land, flattened, exactly where Ladybug would soon find me. I know I was supposed to be frowning, having been so easily overwhelmed by an akumatized villain, but I was so happy to be where I was supposed to be, I couldn't stop grinning.

As I waited for the _ziiing!_ of the yo-yo, I realized I still knew everything. I wasn't entirely certain why I could remember Stormy, since I (technically) hadn't fought her before getting scooped up and sent into the future. I assumed that my crossover with future me in the Entropic Transformation bubble might have imparted a bit more knowledge than we'd anticipated. However it happened, I knew all of the details for Stormy and at least the next two akumas we were going to face.

I decided to call it a parting gift from future me. Maybe he was trying to make it a bit smoother this time around. Lord knows I could use the help.

I _had_ been to the future, and also knew every villain we were going to be fighting over the next year. Future Ladybug had been circumspect enough not to have filled me in on the exact details, of course, so other than the ones I'd already fought in the past, and the events I was part of in the future, I didn't exactly know how we took them all down. Or, for that matter, when each of them would appear specifically.

But it was enough to know that we would get to that future, more or less unscathed.

_I'm even going to die_, I found myself laughing. _Well, I've been dead before…_

I heard the yo-yo, and then the feather light steps of Ladybug as she approached. She leaned over and helped me up. "Do you really want me to say it?" she asked, winking.

I dusted myself off, still smiling. "How much do you remember?"

"Enough," she said. "I know how this turns out, and that we have two more oddly named villains in our immediate future." She leaned closer. "And I still remember who you are, kitty," she said as she wickedly grazed a finger across my lips. "But I also know that we don't officially know that for some months."

I frowned, not at all liking what she was implying. "What are you saying, milady?"

"I'm afraid you are going to be in something of a purrgatory, Chat," Ladybug said as she stepped back and readied her yo-yo. "I'm not sure how you're going to deal with all of the unrequited love you're about to deal with."

My green eyes narrowed. "Oh," I said devilishly. "It's going to be like that, is it?" I trailed a claw along her shoulder as I wandered around her in a circle and felt her breath catch slightly. "I don't think you understand just how purrsuasive I can be when I want to be…" I rubbed my head against hers, purring loudly as I did so.

_Game on, Ladybug_, I thought. _Game on_.

Ladybug tried to disentangle herself from me and cleared her throat. "What did future you say to get you so worked up?" she croaked.

"Enough," I repeated her line back to her. "Now, shall we go defeat Stormy again, bugaboo?"

She sighed, resigned at what the next several months were going to bring. "Yes, kitty," she smiled. "Let's start moving toward the future."

* * *

_**Adrien (present day)**_

The glow had barely faded when there was a knock and Father came striding into my space. I was still perched on the couch, and rolled off to the floor, realizing as I did so I was still in my PE attire… from the past. I tried not to smile.

"Adrien?" he said. For Father, it was borderline emotional. "Are you okay?"

I quirked an eyebrow. "Of course, Father," I said, standing there.

_I mean, I've been backwards and forwards in time, repaired the damage to the timeline and met myself in the process. No biggie. I'm totally fine._

He seemed to breath a bit easier. "Good." He then surprised me by striding over and pulling me into a giant hug – something he'd not done for months. The shock of the action was overwhelming, but I managed to wrap my arms around him, as well, and tried to savor the moment.

Father let me go and stood back. "I, uh…" He looked vaguely uncomfortable. If I'd been Chat Noir, I would have read his expression as being almost apologetic. For Adrien, it was tough to understand.

As he took another step back and straightened his jacket, the moment faded completely. His eyes fell on my hand, and I followed them to the ladybug ring I was wearing.

"I'd never noticed that ring before," he said, ice droplets appearing in his voice.

"It was a gift," I said simply, trying to go for nonchalant and hoping he was unable to see the ladybug motif that had been woven into the Celtic love knot. "From someone I care about."

"It clashes with the _other _ring, Adrien. I'd recommend wearing one, or the other, but not both." He paused again, eyes strangely reappraising me. "Try not to wear either during your next shoot."

"Yes, Father."

"And the photoshoot we'd scheduled for Sunday will be tomorrow afternoon instead. I've already spoken to your school to ensure you'd be released on time."

He'd shifted so quickly back to Business Mogul mode that the emotional whiplash was painful. "Yes, Father," I repeated.

"Good." He turned on heel and left me alone in the room, again.

As usual.

* * *

_**Gabriel (present day)**_

He closed the door and started down the staircase, thoughts spinning out of control. Adrien was back, he'd seen it with his own eyes; he wasn't entirely sure how Ladybug and Chat Noir had corrected his mistake, and he had to begrudgingly admit he owed the troublemaking duo a huge debt.

Despite seeing Adrien in his bedroom, and how it had lifted his heart in a way that he hadn't felt in some time, the Celtic love ring on Adrien's hand had given him pause. It wasn't so much that Adrien had it, but more that the fact it was clearly from someone he did not want Gabriel to know about.

Adrien was still hiding something from him. And he was pretty sure it had more to do with the other more nondescript ring he'd noted some time ago. At the time he'd pointed it out, Adrien hadn't given him a very solid explanation for that one, either.

Gabriel went into his den, where Nathalie was quietly working at her desk, and strode over to the wall painting of his wife. Having that reappear had been a harbinger that Ladybug had been successful well in advance of seeing Adrien presented to him at the stadium.

_The stadium._

He turned back to his workstation and accessed the subsystems where the servers that supported Hawkmoth were running, and queued up the video from earlier in the afternoon. He sped through most of it, then paused it on one camera angle that showed Adrien, Chat Noir and Ladybug, all conveniently facing the lens. Gabriel pinched the image and zoomed in on Adrien.

Both rings were there.

He shifted the angle, and zoomed in on Chat Noir; his image was a bit fuzzy, but he could clearly see the Miraculous jewel on the correct hand. He shifted the view slightly.

There, on the other hand, Chat Noir was clearly wearing the same Celtic love ring.

He backed the video up again, watching them enter the stadium, and reviewed the entire sequence in real time. It dawned on him that the normally loquacious Chat Noir hadn't uttered single word. And that Ladybug had been to the point, almost as if she needed to be somewhere else.

"Nathalie," he said, not looking up. "Do we have access to the exterior cameras from the Stade de France…?"

"I think so," she said, working for a moment. "I've sent them to your workstation."

He popped up the imagery, watched it, and smiled a dark smile. "Rena Rouge," he said quietly. "Clever."

Did that confirm his earlier suspicion? He shook his head; he'd seen Adrien falling from a building months ago – if he were also Chat Noir, that would have been a Hell of a risk to assume Ladybug would rescue him in time.

But the ring… did it mean something else?

Seeing Rena meant that she may have been there to use her power of illusion, but what illusion would she have created? He came back to the image of Chat Noir on his monitor.

Gabriel looked up this time. "Nathalie, I think it's time we put a shorter leash on my son…"

* * *

_**Adrien (present day)**_

Plagg was the only one who'd eaten anything at dinner; I'd nibbled a bit but felt guilty for leaving most of what Chef had prepared untouched. By 2113 I'd had enough of being Adrien and said as much to my kwami.

He was flat on his back on the coffee table, still eating. "Fine," he said without his usual churlishness about being pressed into work after eating. He popped a slice of cheese and then rotated. "Whenever you're ready, Adrien."

"Plagg – claws out!"

* * *

_**Chat Noir (present day)**_

I held out the ring and Plagg became part of it, and the transformation sequence washed over me once more. Once the glow faded, I turned the lights off in the bedroom and vaulted out into the early Paris evening. It was a weeknight and after-hours activity buzzed below me as I sailed through the sky.

Somewhat unusually, Ladybug was waiting for _me_ when I arrived on my favorite rooftop, holding two cups of coffee from the Bakery. I'd smelled them some ways out and eagerly accepted the one she proffered when I dropped in next to her. "Thank you, milady," I said graciously, deciding not to tease her about the insane quantity of sugar I could smell in hers.

It also struck me as odd that she'd laid out a few of our pillows in the space, but none of the candles. The tablecloth was also missing, meaning she'd not brought the grub and had apparently expected me to. It wouldn't have been an unusual assumption – I wound up catering for our hangouts more often than she did – but it was a non sequitur that, in hindsight, I probably should have picked up on.

We turned against the rail and watched the lights come on against the cathedral, sipping quietly. There was a strange undertone in my coffee that I couldn't place. "Did your dad change up his roasting?" I asked, taking another tentative sip. It was almost metallic.

"No," she said. "Why?"

I turned toward her. "Just a flav…" I started, before my vision swam and a wave of vertigo overtook me.

The cup fell from my hand as I reached for the rail, but nothing was working properly; I pitched forward and Ladybug gently caught me and laid me flat on the roof.

"It's okay, kitty," she said calmly. "This will only take a minute."

"Wha- what—" I couldn't get my mouth to work right, but I did manage to lock my eyes onto hers.

They were rimmed in red, and as I tried to blink, I thought I saw her tearing up. Gently, she lifted my head and placed one of our pillows below it, then came around so she could face me properly. I tried to sit up but was totally incapable of any motor control – aside from breathing, I felt paralyzed.

"I talked it over with Master Fu this afternoon, and he helped me make a tough decision." She moved out of my line of sight and came back with two small flasks of amber liquid. "If there is a chance that Hawkmoth thinks he knows our identities, it could be dangerous – to us, to our friends, to our families."

She was uncorking one of the flasks as she spoke. "This is a very targeted memory potion," she explained. "It will block, for a while, any personal memories you have of us. Your knowledge of my identity, our relationship, who the other Miraculous holders are, the location of the Keeper of the Miraculouses."

I felt my eyes widen. "Don't—don't-"

"This is the only way to protect all of us," she said, tears now falling freely. "I've already taken care of Nino, Ayla and Chloe. Once you're done, I'll take the remaining dose to complete the process with me."

She leaned down and kissed me. "It's not meant to be permanent," she said between sobs, "and it will wear off with time. But in the immediate future we will again just be professional strangers."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing and was more than incensed she would make such an important decision without even discussing it with me. Not to mention she'd ruined a perfectly good cup of coffee.

Angry enough that I managed to bark out: "Can't-believe-don't—trust-me!"

"It's not about trust," she said quietly as she started to tip my head up. "This way, if Hawkmoth does wind up getting the drop on any one of us, we'll be able to protect the wider secrets." With her free hand, she started to try and pry my mouth open.

I wasn't going to make it easy for her and with what little control I still had, clamped my jaw shut. She anticipated that action and immediately went for my nose, blocking my airflow in an attempt to get me compliant.

I knew I could go a bit before blacking out and stared menacingly at her, hoping she'd blink before I did. I also wondered what the timing was on the paralyzing agent – I'd not had much, given I'd only taken a few sips of coffee, but it had to have been pretty strong to have affected me so quickly. It was clear Ladybug had expected me to fight, but had also assumed I'd down more coffee than I had.

If she'd been thinking clearly, she'd have remembered my enhanced sense of taste would have alerted me fairly quickly to the unusual flavor, though the coffee had successfully masked the smell.

Yet… it was possible I could feel a toe moving in my boot. And maybe, just maybe, I'd slid an arm fractionally closer to my baton, which was wedged uncomfortably below me.

"Come on, Chat," Ladybug said, crying harder. "Don't make this any more difficult than it already is! It's for the best."

I managed to convey my disagreement with that assessment with a narrowing of my eyes and a deep throated growl I hadn't thought possible. I was starting to get light headed, and blackness was creeping in, so whatever move I wanted to make would have to come soon.

My fingers grazed the baton. If I was angled just right… but I couldn't tell. I'd have to hope.

I triggered the extension mode and held on with everything I had. The baton extended and crashed into the brick of the wall we were next to, shoving me forcibly out from beneath Ladybug. She'd been caught off guard and rolled away awkwardly; I heard the flask crash against the tile. I came to rest a few meters away, gasping to get air back into my lungs.

My limbs were rubbery still, but responding, and I used the baton to push myself up into a standing crouch. "What… what… the… Hell!" I yelled as best as I could.

Ladybug was in the corner of the space, sobbing wildly now. "I have to protect you! I have to protect _everyone_!"

I was breathing hard. "You're not… in this… alone, dammit…" I growled. "Not the... answer...! We're… _partners_!"

She turned and looked at me. "And we have to stay that way," she said, simply, and downed the last flask herself.

_Noooo!_

Ladybug had moved so quickly, I'd no time to react; with the paralyzing agent still in my system, my leap to her side was shorter than I expected, and I had to made another to reach her just as she slumped backwards against the wall.

"Ladybug!" I wrapped an arm around her and gently brought her to my chest. Her eyes had rolled back and she'd passed out under the effects of the potion.

I had no idea how long I sat there, arms snugly wrapped around her, before she finally came out of it.

"Chat?" she said, voice muffled from being pressed against me. "Where are we?"

I blinked back a tear. "What's the last thing you remember, milady?" I asked, trying to keep the quiver out of my voice.

"Uh," she said, groggily. "We were having coffee, right?"

"Yes," I said, my heart surging a bit.

_Maybe it didn't work!_

"What else?"

"It's a bit fuzzy."

I decided to press. "Do you remember the Ball?"

She tensed. "No," she said carefully. "Why? Should I?"

I stifled my immediate response. Ladybug would be right – _she_ hadn't been there. But her alter-ego had.

With me.

"No," I said finally, "I suppose you shouldn't." My voice caught despite my best efforts. "I had a great time, though. It would've been nice if you'd been there with me."

"Sorry I missed it," she said. I could hear multiple levels in her voice, and knew that she was recalling what Marinette had experienced at the Ball, to a point.

Ladybug pulled out of my embrace and sat away from me, all traces of our once-common romantic tension wiped away completely. She was all business, almost as if we had turned the clock back a full year and were just beginning to work with each other. A moue of distaste that I'd been holding her crossed her face briefly before she recomposed it to a fairly genial expression.

My heart broke into tiny, tiny little pieces.

She saw my expression. "Chat, what's wrong?"

I found myself looking down at the ring she'd given me before I answered. The Miraculous magic seemed to allow it to remain in place, whether I was Adrien or Chat Noir. It occurred to me I might need to be more careful about it, since unlike the Cat Miraculous, it looked the same in both circumstances. But right then, I didn't give a damn.

I looked back at Ladybug, and for the first time, noticed she wasn't wearing the pendant I'd given her. That would have been another sign, had I been looking for it. Something inside me went dead.

"I've lost a lot today, milady. More than you can possibly understand."

"Chat, what are you talking about?" She sounded genuinely concerned, which made it hurt even more.

I stood up abruptly. "Not now," I said curtly. "I'll have to find some way to explain it to you, later."

"All right," she said, not completely on the same page but going along with the flow.

The safe play for me, now, was to be the last keeper of the secrets, and hope that I could fool Master Fu into thinking I'd been correctly dosed.

But there was going to be Hell to pay. I pitied the first set of akumas we were going to be facing; I had a lot of anger to get out, and ran the real risk of becoming akumatized myself.

I plastered a Chat-like grin on my face and turned to Ladybug, extending my arm as I always did. "Ready for patrol, bugaboo?" I asked.

She quirked an eyebrow. "I thought I told you I liked 'milady' better?"

"Did you?" I replied icily. "I must have forgotten."

* * *

**AN: Desperate times requiring desperate measures? Ladybug clearly thought so, for better or for worse. Do you agree with her actions? While Chat certainly doesn't (and there will be fallout from this) let me know what _you_ think - although I feel like I am hearing you yell at the screen. **

**With Gabriel also making some threatening moves, Chat seems to have a full plate to deal with. You might almost suspect there is too much going on here to wrap up in the final Epilogue... and you'd be right.**

**Stay tuned...**


	11. Epilogue

It was late when I dropped to the rooftop patio above the Bakery, but I was wired.

Patrol had not been particularly eventful, but Chat _had_ been acting strangely all evening. There had been no playful banter between us, and his lack of flirting went completely against character. In fact, he'd been positively frigid, which for him was a _huge_ feat. I'd tried to draw him out of whatever funk he was in, but he'd steadfastly refused to cooperate.

We'd ended our patrol at the usual rendezvous spot, and he'd leaned in to kiss me – a move that I'd instinctively swatted back, _hard_, since it had been so unexpected. I'd seen several emotions flash past his masked eyes before he'd settled his face into the neutral expression he'd worn for most of the night. But for a moment, just a moment, I'd seen shock, surprise and anger. And maybe a tinge of sadness.

"Tikki – spots off."

The de-transformation flash took hold and Tikki fluttered by my side. She, too, seemed unusually muted. "What's wrong, Tikki?"

"I don't wish to discuss it this evening, Marinette," she said, harshly.

I'd never seen her this way before. "Are you feeling all right? Do I need to take you to…" I trailed off.

That's odd, the name was on the tip of my tongue, and I knew I'd been there before. Or had I? My brain felt like it was wrapped in cotton in certain areas, and this was one of them.

"No," Tikki said tersely. "Goodnight," she said and puffed her way through the skylight toward her bed.

I started pacing the space. I felt wrong, somehow, but couldn't put a finger on why.

At length, I simply started to lean on the railing and was so deep in thought, I'd nearly missed the quiet _thump_ behind me. "Good evening, Princess," I heard Chat say.

I smiled, despite what had happened earlier, and wondered if he'd be more willing to tell Marinette what was bothering him than Ladybug. I turned. "Chat Noir," I said. "What a surprise!"

That brief look of sadness crossed his masked visage again, but he quickly recomposed himself into normal Chat as he leapt from the chimney he always seemed to land on to the railing beside me, balancing perfectly as always. "I was passing by and saw you out here," he said. "Is everything all right?" He paused, eyes searching mine. For what, I wasn't sure. "You're troubled."

_And here I was thinking _he'd_ want to talk to _me.

"I'm fine, Chat. Just tired."

He narrowed his eyes, not believing a word of what I'd said, but let it pass without comment. They widened suddenly, though, and for the first time all evening, I thought I saw a _real_ Chat smile appear. "That, Princess, is quite purretty," he punned, as he gently lifted a claw to point to something behind me. "I had no idea you were an admirer…"

"What?" I said, clueless. I looked over.

There, on a glittering chain, was a pendant of what appeared to be small intricately detailed figure of Le Chat Noir, hanging gently from a limb of the bonsai tree I had in the corner. I'd never seen it before in my life, but it also seemed vaguely familiar.

_What the Hell?_

* * *

**AN: So... that's where I'll wrap this part of the story. But getting Ladybug back into Chat's arms is going to require some effort - and another story in this arc. Find out how in _Night at the Museum_ which will appear shortly and feature far more MariChat than I've done in the past.**

**Also, thank you for the wonderful feedback from the last chapter - both in the review box and direct PMs. I consider myself a writer-in-progress so all observations are welcome - especially if I've left a thread dangling that really should have been tied up.**


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